Peter Williams (painter)

Painter

For other people of that name, see Peter Williams (disambiguation).

Peter Williams

Born| (1952-03-18)March 18, 1952

Nyack, New York

Died| August 19, 2021(2021-08-19) (aged 69)

Wilmington, Delaware

Years active| 1969-2021

Peter Beresford Williams (March 18, 1952 - August 19, 2021) was an American painter, educator, and social activist. His paintings have been described by writer and artist William Eckhardt Kohler as "in no particular order: hallucinogenic, acerbic, pained, beautiful, confessional, obsessive, critical, jarring, wild, weird, and profoundly human".[1] In 2020, Williams received the Artists' Legacy Foundation Artist Award.[2]

## Early life

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Peter Beresford Williams was born on March 18, 1952, in Suffern, New York, and grew up in Nyack, New York.[3] He had his first solo show at the Pat Merenstein Gallery in Nyack at the age of 17. Soon after his work was exhibited at other venues, including the Woodstock Music Festival.[4] He graduated from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 1975 with a B.F.A, and in 1987 received his M.F.A. from the Maryland Institute College of Art, in Baltimore, Maryland.[5]

## Style

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Poet and art critic John Yau has described his paintings as "...reminiscent of both India and the child’s board game Candyland, but the world Williams depicts, and this includes the abstract paintings, is a vulnerable one where everything has either gone haywire or is about to. [...] Compassion is rare in contemporary art, and Williams gets it just right, which is to say there isn’t a trace of sentimentality in his work. [...] Williams is able to infuse his paintings with a sense of humor that is simultaneously tender and terrifying."[6]

The University of Delaware's UDaily described him as "a contemporary artist, whose complex, narrative paintings offer a commentary on issues of race and culture in modern society. [...] His art reflects his social consciousness about issues of race, class and popular culture."[4]

The Artists' Legacy Foundation described his work as thus: "For more than four decades, Williams has created artworks that explore contemporary culture, racism, police brutality, incarceration, environmentalism, and voyeurism through an approachable visual style. His paintings encourage the viewer to look deeply at the canvas for clues and insight about the Black experience. For example, pattern and distortion represent the conditions and circumstances that disrupt Black lives. Defying categorization, his painting style incorporates varying levels of abstraction, figuration, narrative, and iconographic elements. He draws inspiration from posters, comics, and the vibrant colors of city life."[7]

Eve Aschheim has written that “Peter Williams is a unique and unpredictable voice on the scene. He is one of the most poignant artists of our time to address themes of race and politics, and his raw, edgy work risks making the viewer uncomfortable, and resists assimilation into the decorum of the art world. His outstanding paintings transcend categories, as he forges realism, fantasy, cartooning, bold color, symbols, personal iconography, humor, and the news to unforgettable effect.”[7]

Art Critic Barry Schwabsky has written that "The one thing Williams’s figurative paintings share with his abstractions is their intense, assertive, joyously inharmonious color [...] an almost aggressively fruity palette."[8]

In speaking of Williams' show at Foxy Production, William Eckhardt Kohler wrote that "through playful form, seductive color and an apparently populist cartoonyness, Williams invites us to live with uncomfortable, unanswerable questions."[1]

## Honors and awards

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Williams received the Ford Foundation Fellowship in 1985. In 1996 he worked on the Mercedes-Benz Project in Detroit, Michigan; he and his students worked on a large project of 11,000 square feet, painting walls, ceiling, and floor for the Mercedes-Benz display that was shown in Detroit, Barcelona, and Frankfurt.[4] In 2002, he participated in the Whitney Biennial.[9]

In 2018 he was inducted into the National Academy of Design,[10] in 2020 he received the Artists' Legacy Foundation Award,[7] and in 2021 he was awarded The American Academy of Arts and Letters Purchase Award, and a few months later the Guggenheim Fellowship.[11]

## Exhibitions and features

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Institutions where Williams currently has paintings on display include the Smithsonian American Art Museum,[12] the Delaware Art Museum,[13] the Whitney Museum of American Art,[14] the Detroit Institute of Arts,[15] and multiple University collections.[16]

He has had solo shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit,[17] the Fort Wayne Museum of Art,[18] Rhodes College,[19] and the CUE Art Foundation.[5] Exhibitions containing Williams' work have appeared at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art,[20] the San Antonio Museum of Art,[21] the Addison Gallery of American Art,[22] Carnegie Mellon University,[23] the Armory Center for the Arts,[24] Wayne State University,[25] the Detroit Institute of Art,[26] and the University of Michigan Slusser Gallery.[27]

In 2023, Williams work was included in the exhibition and accompanying scholar book Spirit in the Land, organized and exhibited at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, North Carolina, which later traveled to the Pérez Art Museum Miami, Florida in 2024.[28][29][30]

His work has been featured in The New York Times,[31] Forbes,[32] the Los Angeles Times,[33] the Detroit Metro Times,[34] The Nation,[8] and HuffPost.[1]

In 2016, the Detroit-based publisher Rotland Press published a monograph The N-Word: Paintings by Peter Williams, with an interview between Williams and the poet, playwright, educator and activist Bill Harris. [35]

## Personal life

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While in New Mexico, a major automobile accident led to the amputation of his right leg above the knee, forcing him to walk using arm crutches for the remainder of his life.[4][36] In 2020, Williams retired from his position as a professor at the University of Delaware.[37]

Peter Williams died in Wilmington, Delaware, on August 19, 2021, at the age of 69.[38][3]

## References

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1. ^ a b c "Peter Williams at Foxy Production- Coyote Tales". HuffPost. March 13, 2013.
2. ^ "Peter Williams Wins Artists' Legacy Foundation's $25,000 Artist Award - Artforum International". Artforum.com. September 21, 2020. Retrieved November 17, 2022.
3. ^ a b Genzlinger, Neil (September 18, 2021). "Peter Williams, Who Painted the Black Experience, Dies at 69". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved September 19, 2021.
4. ^ a b c d "Contemporary artist at UD wins major award". www1.udel.edu.
5. ^ a b "Peter Williams". CUE Art Foundation.
6. ^ Yau, John (February 24, 2013). "Peter Williams's Body, Opened and Closed". Hyperallergic.
7. ^ a b c "Nancy Chunn - Artists' Legacy Fountation". www.artistslegacyfoundation.org.
8. ^ a b Schwabsky, Barry (August 4, 2020). "What Truths Can You Divine From Instagram Paintings?" - via www.thenation.com. `{{cite magazine}}`: Cite magazine requires `|magazine=` (help)
9. ^ "Peter Williams".
10. ^ "All National Academicians (1825 - Present)". National Academy of Design.
11. ^ "John Simon Guggenheim Foundation | Peter B. Williams".
12. ^ "Peter Williams | Smithsonian American Art Museum". americanart.si.edu.
13. ^ "Smile". emuseum.delart.org.
14. ^ "Peter Williams | Jasper's Last Breath". whitney.org.
15. ^ "Portrait of Christopher D. Fisher, Fourth Reich Skinhead". www.dia.org.
16. ^ "Peter Williams. Black Universe". Wall Street International. July 3, 2020.
17. ^ "PETER WILLIAMS: BLACK UNIVERSE".
18. ^ "Treasures from the Vault: Peter Williams". From the Fort Wayne Museum of Art. August 24, 2020.
19. ^ "Peter Williams | Rhodes Sites". sites.rhodes.edu.
20. ^ "Men of Steel, Women of Wonder | Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art". crystalbridges.org.
21. ^ "Men of Steel, Women of Wonder - Past Exhibition | San Antonio Museum of Art". www.samuseum.org.
22. ^ "Phillips Academy -". addison.andover.edu.
23. ^ "Art Reviews: Gallery gathers works from the comic cosmos". old.post-gazette.com.
24. ^ "Cartoons storm the gallery gates". Los Angeles Times. July 22, 2004.
25. ^ http://216.197.120.164/artistbibliog.cfm?id=1867
26. ^ "Detroit Institute of Arts/Interventions". goodfelloweb.com.
27. ^ "'This/Ability' focuses on representations of disabilities, day-to-day practical and political issues". ur.umich.edu.
28. ^ Schoonmaker, Trevor (2023). Spirit in the land: Exhibition, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, 2023. Durham, North Carolina: Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. ISBN 978-0-938989-45-5.
29. ^ "Spirit in the Land". Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. Retrieved March 4, 2024.
30. ^ "Spirit in the Land". Pérez Art Museum Miami. Retrieved March 4, 2024.
31. ^ Genzlinger, Neil (September 18, 2021). "Peter Williams, 69, Dies; His Art Evoked Black Lives, Including His". The New York Times.
32. ^ Gural, Natasha. "George Floyd's Death And Systemic Racism Spark Creative Breakthroughs For Artists". Forbes.
33. ^ "Review: Dot by dot, painter Peter Williams makes points about racial violence". Los Angeles Times. November 30, 2018.
34. ^ "Fond farewell". Detroit Metro Times.
35. ^ "Paintings of a Homegrown Black Superhero". October 18, 2016.
36. ^ "Untitled Document". www.thedetroiter.com.
37. ^ "Employing 'Outrageous Color,' Peter Williams Makes Bold Paintings That Confront Racial Oppression and Envision a 'Black Universe'". September 11, 2020.
38. ^ "Remembering Trailblazing African-American Artist Peter Williams, Who Painted Every Personal and Collective Experience with Passion for Social Justice". Forbes.

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