Gerald Williams (artist)

Gerald Williams (born 1941 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American visual artist whose work has been influential within the Black Arts Movement,[1][2] a transnational aesthetic phenomenon that first manifested in the 1960s and continues to evolve today. Williams was a founding member of AfriCOBRA.[3] His work has been featured in exhibitions at some of the most important museums in the world, including the Tate Modern,[4] the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago,[5] the Studio Museum in Harlem,[6] and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia.[7] In addition to his influence as a contemporary artist, he has served in the Peace Corps, taught in the public schools systems of Chicago and Washington, D.C., and served as an Arts and Crafts Center Director for the United States Air Force. In 2015, he moved back to his childhood neighborhood of Woodlawn, Chicago, where he currently lives and works. In 2019, Mr. Williams was awarded The Honorary Doctors of Philosophy in Art by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, along with his co-founders of the AFRICOBRA, Jae Jarrell, and Wadsworth A. Jarrell.

  1. ^ "Visual Arts in the Black Arts Movement in Chicago Resource Page". chicagohistoryfair.org. Archived from the original on 2017-08-17. Retrieved 2017-08-16.
  2. ^ Company, Johnson Publishing (July 1970). Black World/Negro Digest. Johnson Publishing Company. {{cite book}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  3. ^ Margasak, Peter (7 July 2015). "Why the AACM and AfriCOBRA still matter". Chicago Reader. Retrieved 2017-08-16.
  4. ^ Press release from the Tate listing Gerald Williams as a participating artist in the Soul of a Nation exhibition
  5. ^ SARGENT, ANTWAUN (2015-11-12). "Chicago's Black Avant-Garde Art and Music Tradition Goes on Display". Creators. Retrieved 2017-08-16.
  6. ^ Exhibition checklist listing Gerald Williams' participation in exhibitions at the Studio Museum in Harlem
  7. ^ textversusart (2016-11-06). "The Freedom Principle". Text Based Art. Retrieved 2017-08-16.