Robert Williams (artist)

Robert L. Williams, often styled '''Robt.

Williams received his first car at twelve years old as a gift from his father: a 1934 Ford five-window coupe.

References to his childhood environment can be seen throughout Williams' work, as well as in the custom hot rods which he would later build himself.

He became so skillful at painting specular reflection from chromed auto parts that he later drew the chrome parts for other comix artists, who then drew the rest of the auto.

The Williams household was unstable, as his parents married each other a total of four times.

During his early childhood, Williams was shuttled between Albuquerque, New Mexico, and his father's home in Montgomery, Alabama.

Williams' (born March 2, 1943), is an American painter, cartoonist, and founder of Juxtapoz Art & Culture Magazine''.

Williams was one of the group of artists who produced Zap Comix, along with other underground cartoonists, such as Robert Crumb, S. Clay Wilson, and Gilbert Shelton.

His mix of California car culture, cinematic apocalypticism, and film noir helped to create a new genre of psychedelic imagery.

Robert L. Williams II was born on March 2, 1943, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Robert Wandell Williams and Betty Jane Spink.

At a very early age he displayed an interest in drawing and in watercolor painting.

He was enrolled in the Stark Military Academy in the first grade.

This might have led to his collecting German Pickelhauben later in life.

When he was around fourteen years old, he was a member of the Albuquerque Unicycle Club.

Williams was instilled at an early age with a love for car culture.

His father owned The Parkmore, a drive-in restaurant complete with carhops, which was frequented by hot rodders.

His parents' final separation occurred in 1956, after which 12-year-old Robert lived with his mother in Albuquerque.

He became a delinquent, immersing himself in hot rods, hi-jinx, and street gangs; this led to him being expelled from public school in the eleventh grade.

In the late 1960s, while doing advertisements and graphics for Roth, Williams was also a productive oil painter.

It was during this period that he created his "Super Cartoon" paintings.

These included Appetite for Destruction (which depicts a robotic rapist about to be punished by a metal avenger) and In the Land of Retinal Delights.

These paintings were meticulously created in the style of the old masters, using hand-made paints and multiple layers of varnish.

The "Super Cartoon" works sold well but were very time-consuming to produce, sometimes requiring more than a year.

To avoid the possibility of jail time, Williams moved to Los Angeles in 1963 when he was twenty years old.

There, he enrolled in art courses at Los Angeles City College, where he contributed artwork to the school's paper, The Collegiate, and met Suzanne Chorna, his future wife.

After that, he briefly attended the California Institute of the Arts (formerly the Chouinard Art Institute), where he was branded an "illustrator" in derogatory fashion.

Now married, Williams left art school and became a professional artist in search of work.

He worked for Black Belt magazine and designed containers for the Weyerhaeuser Corporation, before he found his dream job in 1965 working with Ed "Big Daddy" Roth.

In 1969 Williams joined the Zap Comix collective of artists with the infamous issue number 4 of Zap Comix.

He flourished within the non-conformist, anti-establishment art movement of that time, along with Robert Crumb, S. Clay Wilson, Gilbert Shelton, Spain Rodriguez, Rick Griffin, and Victor Moscoso.

That same year he created Coochy Cooty, his seminal underground comix antihero.

His creation was unleashed in 1970 in Coochy Cooty Men's Comics and in many issues of Zap Comix, and is still alive today in Williams's oil paintings.

1970 was also the last year of Williams employment with Roth studios.

Many of Williams' comix and "Super Cartoon" paintings were included in his first book, ''The Lowbrow Art of Robt.

In the 1980s, Williams became involved with the punk rock movement and found his next audience.

During this period, he published Zombie Mystery Paintings, which influenced and inspired a multitude of artists with its vibrant, sexy, and ultra-violent images.

These works were done quickly, on rough canvas, and were sold via a waiting list due to heavy demand.

In addition to Williams's books, the popularity of his work was established in galleries known for lowbrow art, such as Billy Shire's La Luz de Jesus Gallery, 01 Gallery, and the Tamara Bane Gallery.

Williams'', which was published in 1982 by Rip Off Press.

The title of the book was meant as a statement to the highbrow tone of the art world, which was antithetical to Williams's artwork.