Robt. Williams in Long Beach
Robert Williams, The Hermit Waif's Vulnerable Reverie , 2020 Born in Albuquerque in 1943, Robert Williams skipped town as a juvenile delinquent and landed in Los Angeles at the age of 19. There he briefly attended the Chouinard Art Institute, forerunner of Cal Arts. By the mid 1960s Williams was working for hot rod maestro Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, helping to imagineer the "Ratfink" meme. He teamed with Robert Crumb, among others, in launching Zap Comix and the underground comics movement. Another project was Juxtapoz magazine, devoted to the Lowbrow zeitgeist. Meanwhile Williams was scoring exhibitions at New York's Tony Shafrazi Gallery and places in MOCA's Paul Schimmel-curated "Helter Skelter" (1992), and the 2010 Whitney Biennial. LACMA has a Williams painting (donated by Ed and Danna Ruscha, no less). The latest item on Williams' long resume is a show at the Long Beach Museum of Art,"Robert Williams: Fearless Depictions" (thr...
