In 1970, William T. Williams was Artist-in-Residence at the University of Delaware – the same year he created five artworks currently on view in Marisol to Warhol: Printmaking and Creative Collaboration. This University Night, DelArt welcomes Delaware’s collegiate communities to experience a keynote discussion between William T. Williams and Julie L. McGee.
Known for his bold color and daring compositions, William T. Williams (American, born 1942) has been committed to abstraction for over fifty years. An alumnus of Pratt Institute, Yale University, and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Williams has cultivated a process-based approach to painting that synthesizes autobiographical reference, social narrative, and formal motifs sourced from specific cultural histories of the South as well as New York. The recipient of numerous awards of distinction, Williams has garnered critical and institutional attention throughout his career. He has continually sought to engage his communities in dialogues about art through a variety of undertakings, including a 40-year teaching career, initiating the artist-in-residence program at The Studio Museum in Harlem, and founding the muralist collective Smokehouse Associates. Michael Rosenfeld Gallery LLC is the exclusive representative of William T. Williams.
Julie L. McGee is an art historian and independent curator and a 2024-2025 Tyson Scholar in American Art at the Crystal Bridges Museum of Art. Most recently, McGee served as the Director of the Interdisciplinary Humanities Research Center and Associate Professor of Africana Studies and Art History at the University of Delaware.
Image: William T. Williams with Neck Bones I and Neck Bones II (1970) at Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT, 2018, Photographer Grant Delin, Courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery LLC, New York, NY.