COLLEGIAN TIMES
46
2021 SPRING-SUMMER
CULTURED LOS ANGELES
Bitchin.
'...
ENFANT TERRIBLE TAKES DOWN ART WORLD TO LOWBROW
ROBERT WILLIAMS
WILD, SURREAL IMAGES ARE THE VOCABULARY ROBERT WILLIAMS USED TO CREATE AN ART MOVEMENT. WHEN HE ARRIVED AT L.A. CITY COLLEGE, HE PARTIED WITH THE STARS, GOT THE LOWESTPAYING JOB EVER AND MET A BRAINY CHICK IN TIGHT JEANS WITH A T-SQUARE WHO BECAME THE LOVE OF HIS LIFE. BY REBECCA GRAZIER AND JOHN JOHNS IMAGES COURTESY OF ROBERT WILLIAMS
I
t took the lowliest and most underappreciated art form to open and democratize American art: the comic book. Robert Williams and his love of the comic book have been at the forefront of free expression or letting your imagination run riot since he left Los Angeles City College in the mid-1960s. Outsiders appreciate his art, but not art school, not his peers, not the art world’s cultural police, certainly not feminist media and definitely not the FBI.
He was just an artist with a dream when he enrolled at Los Angeles City College. Williams left Albuquerque and traveled to Los Angeles with a friend. They found an apartment across the street from the campus in East Hollywood. “And I came out for an art education, and at that time, the art department was in a bunch of barracks, they hadn’t finished the big art building,” Williams told the Collegian. “So, I took all the art classes I could over there, and I just dedicated myself to doing art studies.”
