Glasgow Museums marks the centenary of Aubrey Williams with a special Black History Month tour exploring two important paintings by the Guyanese-born artist.
Williams was born in Guyana on 8th May 1926, making 2026 the hundredth anniversary of his birth.
He lived in Guyana until 1952 before travelling to Britain and studying at St Martin’s School of Art in London. His work would later become recognised as an important contribution to twentieth-century abstract painting.
Williams occupies a fascinating place within the history of Black British art.
His paintings were often intensely colourful and abstract, but abstraction did not mean that the work was disconnected from politics, history or human experience.
Glasgow Museums notes that Williams rejected the idea that abstract painting was somehow less socially committed than figurative art.
His paintings brought geological, historical and human ideas together through layers of colour, paint and texture.
Williams also belonged to a generation of Caribbean artists who came to Britain during the post-war period and contributed significantly to the development of modern British art.
Yet Black artists working in abstraction have not always received the same public recognition as their white contemporaries.
The centenary provides an opportunity to reconsider that history.
Rather than viewing Black art only through explicitly political or documentary imagery, Williams demonstrated that Black artists could engage equally with abstraction, modernism, landscape, science and philosophical questions.
This intimate tour concentrates on two paintings held within Glasgow Museums’ collection and examines both the artworks themselves and questions surrounding museum collecting.
For Black History Month, it offers a valuable chance to discover an artist whose work links Guyana, Britain, Caribbean history and twentieth-century modern art.
Places are free but limited to 15 participants, so advance booking is essential.
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