61
●
WILLIAM T.WILLIAMS (1942 - )
Truckin
.
Acrylic on cotton canvas, 1969. 2032x1524 mm; 84x60 inches. Signed, titled, dated and inscribed
in pencil, verso on the stretcher bars.
Provenance: private California collection; gifted to California State University, Fullerton, CA (1998).
Truckin
is a significant painting, and the earliest painting by this important African-American artist
to date to come to auction. It is an excellent example of William T.Williams’ first year of painting
after completing his MFA from Yale University, with the imagery that quickly gained him an
international recognition as an abstract painter in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Williams’ talents had been recognized from an early age. He was accepted in the summer before his
senior year at Pratt Institute to the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture before receiving
his B.A. in 1966.After earning his M.F.A. fromYale University in 1968, he participated in
The Black
Artist in America: A Symposium
, held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.Williams’
abstract painting achieved early institutional recognition when the Museum of Modern Art, New
York, purchased his 1969 painting
Elbert Jackson L.A.M.F., Part II
. His paintings were also included
in such important exhibitions as the Studio Museum in Harlem’s
Inaugural Show
, the Whitney
Biennial and
New Acquisitions
at the Museum of Modern Art. In 1970, both the Jewish Museum,
NewYork, and the Menil Collection, Houston, commissioned paintings.
Sweets Crane
, 1969, in the
collection of New York State at the Empire State Plaza shares the mixture of warm, earthy tones
with high key colors found in the palette of
Truckin
.Another 1969 painting
Trane
, in the collection
of the Studio Museum in Harlem, was recently exhibited in the 2012 group exhibition
Blues for
Smoke
exhibition at MOCA, Los Angeles. Many of his 1969 paintings share titles that revealWilliams’
interest in jazz;
“truckin”
was an expression used by musicians, and the title of a Fats Waller song.
Jones pp. 16-17; Powell/Reynolds pp. 235-6.
[75,000/100,000]
