William T. Williams, Jr. US, b. 1942

“If you are an abstract painter, you’re struggling with 2 things constantly: the first struggle is with the idea; there’s no road map in terms of what it should look like and where you’re going, so the question becomes does it have purpose and does it have content? Content has to come out of a commitment on your part that art is important, that art can transform lives and art is the one thing that allows us to communicate across cultures.”

 

- William T. Williams

William T. Williams is an American painter and educator. He is known for his process-based approach to painting that engages motifs drawn from personal memory and cultural narrative to create non-referential, abstract compositions. He was a Professor of Art at Brooklyn College, City University of New York from 1971 to 2008.He has exhibited in over 100 museums and art centers in the United States, France, Germany, Russia, Venezuela, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, People's Republic of China and Japan. Williams is a recipient of numerous awards including a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, two National Endowment for the Arts Awards, and a Joan Mitchell Foundation Award. He is also a recipient of the Studio Museum in Harlem's Artist Award in 1992 and received The James Van Dee Zee Award from the Brandywine Workshop for lifetime achievement in the arts in 2005. He received the 2006 North Carolina Award for Fine Arts, the highest civilian honor the state can bestow. Williams lives in both New York City and Connecticut.