Artists

Gerald Williams is an American painter whose work has been deeply influential within the Black Arts Movement and beyond. A founding member of AFRICOBRA (African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists), the internationally renowned collective established on Chicago’s South Side in 1967, Williams helped shape a transnational aesthetic of empowerment, color, rhythm, and community that continues to resonate today.

Williams’ paintings exist at the intersection of figuration and abstraction, what he calls “mimesis at midpoint”—a polyrhythmic visual language that captures both the observable and the intuitive. His images reflect a lifetime of experiences across cultures and geographies, distilling influences from African textiles and architecture, city streets and rural landscapes, and the quiet atmospheres of places he has lived around the world.

In addition to his studio practice, Williams has led a life of wide-ranging service and education. He served four years in the U.S. Air Force, two years in the Peace Corps as Prevocational Director at the Jacaranda School for the Mentally Handicapped in Nairobi, Kenya, and over two decades as Director of Arts and Crafts Centers for U.S. Air Force bases in South Korea, Japan, Italy, the Azores, and the United States. He has also taught in the public school systems of Chicago and Washington, D.C., and influenced generations of artists through his example of cultural engagement and experimentation. Williams earned his BA from Chicago Teachers College (1969) and MFA from Howard University (1976).

His work has been featured in many of the most important exhibitions and institutions worldwide, including Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power (Tate Modern, London; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, AR; Brooklyn Museum, NY; The Broad, Los Angeles; SFMOMA; MFA Houston); AFRICOBRA: Nation Time (2019 Venice Biennale); Everything Is Connected: Art and Conspiracy (The Met Breuer, New York); The Time is Now! Art Worlds of Chicago’s South Side, 1960–1980 (Smart Museum of Art, Chicago); and AFRICOBRA: Messages to the People (MOCA North Miami). His paintings are held in the collections of the Smart Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum, de Young Museum, DuSable Museum of African American History, among others.

In recognition of his impact, Williams and fellow AFRICOBRA founders Jae Jarrell and Wadsworth Jarrell were awarded honorary Doctorates of Philosophy in Art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2019. He currently lives and works in his childhood neighborhood of Woodlawn, Chicago.