Oil and collage on paper, signed along lower right, matted but not framed.

Sheet size 12 3/4 x 17 1/4 in.; Sight size 10 x 15 1/2 in.; Frame dimensions 17 x 22 in.

Private Collection, Brooklyn, New York

Walter Henry Williams was born in Brooklyn, New York. He began his formal art studies at the Brooklyn Museum Art School under Ben Shahn, Reuben Tam and Gregorio Prestopino.

In 1953 he won a summer scholarship to study at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. That same year his work was included in the Whitney Museum's Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting. In 1955 he was awarded a Whitney Fellowship, which allowed him to travel to Denmark.

Williams spent the majority of his lifetime outside of the United States. He found great artistic and personal freedom while living and working in Mexico and Europe. After four years in Mexico, he returned to Europe, this time to Copenhagen. Here he befriended other expat Black American artists and organized an exhibited entitled “Ten American Negro Artists Living and Working in Europe” The artists featured were Sam Middleton, Beauford Delaney, Harvey Cropper, Norma Morgan, Herbert Gentry, Arthur Hardie, Clifford Jackson, Earl Miller and Larry Potter.

In 1967, William was invited to serve as Artist-in-Residence at Fisk University, a private HBCU in Nashville, Tennessee. While there, he completed a body of work documenting his experiences as an African American living in the South. This same period saw his embrace of printmaking as a medium of expression. By 1969, Williams was back in Copenhagen, gaining Danish citizenship in 1979.

Williams’ works are in prominent collections including the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Baltimore Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Howard University Art Gallery and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Toning and mat burn to sheet; scattered foxing, primarily along lower margin of sheet; light sheet rippling.

$2,000 - 4,000