Aubrey Williams

Aubrey Williams (1926 Guyana - 1990 London), is a key figure of Post-War painting in Britain. He was a founding member of the 1960s Caribbean Artists Movement, received the Commonwealth Prize in Painting from Queen Elizabeth II in 1965, and the Golden Arrow of Achievement from the Guyanese government in 1979. His transatlantic presence (time in Guyana and the Caribbean, living in London) uses abstraction as a cross-cultural translation. Williams eschewed categorization, blending representational aspects into his abstract paintings, and uniting a spectrum of visual and cultural references ranging from astronomy and ecology to pre-Columbian iconography and music.

Williams' recent exhibitions include: “Artists & Empire: Facing Britain’s Imperial Past,” Tate Modern; “Get Up, Stand Up Now,” Somerset House; and “The Gift of Art,” Perez Museum. He is in collections including the Tate Modern; Perez Museum of Art, Miami, the Commonwealth Institute, London; the National Gallery of Jamaica, and others.