Aubrey Williams

Aubrey Williams (8 May 1926 – 17 April 1990) was a Guyanese artist.

He was best known for his large, oil-on-canvas paintings, which combine elements of abstract expressionism with forms, images and symbols inspired by the pre-Columbian art of indigenous peoples of the Americas.

Born in Georgetown in British Guiana (now Guyana), Williams began drawing and painting at an early age.

He received informal art tutoring from the age of three, and joined the Working People's Art Class at the age of 12.

After training to be an agronomist, he worked as an Agricultural Field Officer for eight years, initially on the sugar plantations of the East Coast and later in the North-West region of the country—an area inhabited primarily by the indigenous Warao people.

His time among the Warao had a dramatic impact on his artistic approach, and initiated the complex Obsession with pre-Columbian arts and cultures that ran throughout his artistic career.

Aubrey Williams was born on 8 May 1926 in Georgetown in British Guiana, the eldest of seven children.

His parents were middle-class Guyanese with mixed African, Carib, and possibly other, ancestry.

He was raised in accordance with Christian, English values, and his parents strongly discouraged his childhood interest in populist, African-derived, art forms such as Anancy stories and the masquerade bands (locally known as "Santapee bands") that performed in the streets of Georgetown at Christmas.

Williams' artistic tendencies emerged early on in his youth.

When he was three years old, and living on Bourda Street in central Georgetown, he produced an observational sketch of a turkey vulture eating a dead rat in Bourda Cemetery.

On seeing the drawing, his father (who was working as a postman at that time) took it to a local Dutch art restorer, named Mr De Wynter, who worked in the churches of British Guiana.

De Wynter instantly recognised Williams artistic talent, and decided to offer him informal art training.

They worked together for five years.

Reflecting on this early art training years later, Williams noted that it was very different from conventional methods of teaching art in the UK: "He [De Wynter] would give me a task to perform, say, ask me to draw some animals or some fruits. He would then take the drawing and see if it was good. He would never correct the drawing. He would instead make another drawing."

It was, Williams said, the "best method" he had ever come across, and one that profoundly influenced him in his own career as an art teacher.

Between the ages of 12 and 15, while he was still at school, Williams attended the Working People's Art Class (WPAC) in Georgetown, which was led by the artist E. R. Burrowes.

At the age of 15, Williams enrolled on a four-year agricultural apprenticeship scheme that was run in affiliation with University College, London.

His training included a special focus on sugar production.

He was appointed as an Agricultural Field Officer in 1944.

In the early years of his employment with the Department of Agriculture in British Guiana, Williams occupied three positions simultaneously: Field Officer, Agricultural Superintendent for the East Coast, and Cane-Farming Officer.

He was appointed to the latter position following his efforts to negotiate with the government on behalf of the cane-farmers.

As Cane-Farming Officer, he was expected to "smooth out relations" between the owners and managers of the sugar plantations and the workers, without "rocking the boat".

Williams, however, had other plans.

He worked hard to defend the rights of the cane-farmers, and in doing so was brought into regular confrontation with the plantation managers.

Indeed, in his words, he became "a bloody thorn in their side, demanding correct figures, fair play, and that sort of thing".

Although this period of his life was a very stressful one, Williams continued painting throughout.

Shortly after he qualified as an Agricultural Officer, Williams contacted E. R. Burrowes and returned to the Working People's Art Class, but this time as a teacher and organiser.

Together they extended the WPAC beyond central Georgetown by setting up auxiliary classes throughout the East Coast.

Williams himself established new classes in the agricultural regions in which he was working, and would often lead classes when Burrowes was unavailable.

The classes were held at least twice weekly.

After a number of years working on the East Coast, Williams was sent to work among the Warao (or Warrau) people in the North-West of the country (now the Barima-Waini region, or Region 1).

He was put in charge of the Agricultural Station in the area.

Although he had technically been promoted, Williams initially viewed his redeployment as a form of punishment for his activism on behalf of the sugar-cane farmers.

"It was like sending someone to Siberia," he said.

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Williams left Guyana at the height of the Independence Movement in 1952, and moved to the United Kingdom.

Following his first exhibition in London in 1954, he became an increasingly significant figure in the post-war British avant-garde art scene, particularly through his association with Denis Bowen's New Vision Centre Gallery.

In 1966, he came together with a group of London-based Caribbean artists and intellectuals to found the Caribbean Artists Movement, which served as a dynamic hub of cultural events and activity until its dissolution in 1972.

From 1970 onwards, Williams worked in studios in Jamaica and Florida as well as the UK, and it was during this period that he produced three of his best-known series of paintings: Shostakovich (1969–1981), The Olmec-Maya and Now (1981–1985) and Cosmos (1989).