Aubrey Williams (b. 1929 Guyana d. 1990 London) was a post-war British painter who considered the core of his practice “his interest in pre-Columbian culture and his involvement with pre-Columbian artifacts.” Stuart Hall, a founder of the British Cultural Studies school of thought, considered Aubrey Williams a member of “the last colonials” to arrive into the post-1945 London art-world, along with abstract painters such as Pakistani Anwar Shemza (1928–1985) and Guyanese Frank Bowling (b.1934). Hall identified their “universalist and cosmopolitan outlook,” highlighting that they felt “they belonged to the modern art movement and, in a way, it belonged to them.”

Aubrey Williams was an original founding member of the Caribbean Artists Movement, in London, 1966. His youth in Guyana, followed by a life traveling between London, Florida, Guyana and the Caribbean, inspired and shaped his practice, mixing a fascination with pre-Columbian culture with his own explorations of abstraction.

Aubrey 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 Art Museum, Miami. He received the Commonwealth Prize in Painting from Queen Elizabeth II in 1965, the Golden Arrow of Achievement from the Guyanese government in 1979, and the Cacique’s Crown of Honor from the Guyanese government in 1986. He has been featured by the New York Times (in the article “Black Artists and the March into the Museum”), Artsy, Artnet, Financial Times, and The Art Newspaper.