We are honored to present works from the Collection of Arthur J. Williams (1936–2021), a man who lived a life dedicated to, and surrounded by, the arts.
Williams began his career in the mailroom at CBS before working in production and editing TV advertisements. He founded Editing Concepts Inc. in 1970, of which he became Chairman of the Board, and was instrumental in expanding the company to six divisions all related to the film and video industry. He was a founding member of the Association of Independent Creative Editors and served as its president for a time. Williams’s success in the media world afforded him the freedom to follow his passion for the arts, and he became a respected member of the International Academy of Ceramics (Geneva, Switzerland) and the Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts (Newcastle, Maine). Additionally, he was on the board of the Craft Alliance of the 52nd St. YWCA, where he curated a number of exhibits for the Elsa Mott Gallery, and he conceptualized the Museum of Ceramic Art - New York, an important virtual platform which celebrates the art of ceramics.
“I am a clay addict. My fixes come in big and small, bright and demure and always quench my need temporarily. Or should I call it a sweet tooth that has a constant craving?...As a collector of clay objects, I am at once picky and open to what shares my home. An artwork has to show creativity, sparks of ingenuity and passion.”
A passionate collector and voracious reader, Williams remarked in a 2000 interview: “Educating oneself is the most exciting thing if not the most important aspect of collecting. Without knowledge, you can’t grow.” His genuine curiosity about art led him to acquire a diverse range of works from Chinese Export Ware and Pennsylvania Red Ware to sculptures by Chakaia Booker and contemporary ceramics from artists around the world. He found great joy in seeking out new pieces and in a note from his personal archive, we are given a wonderful glimpse into his thought process as a collector: “I am a clay addict. My fixes come in big and small, bright and demure and always quench my need temporarily. Or should I call it a sweet tooth that has a constant craving?...As a collector of clay objects, I am at once picky and open to what shares my home. An artwork has to show creativity, sparks of ingenuity and passion.” Williams had a prescient eye for art, especially of the clay variety, and assembled what became one of the most important, and comprehensive, contemporary ceramics collections of the present day.
My intention is to translate materials into imagery that will stimulate people to consider themselves as a part of their environment—one piece of it. Whether I use an architectural format or something to look at, I believe art should dialogue with viewers.
Chakaia Booker
Chakaia Booker b. 1953
American sculptor Chakaia Booker is an internationally renowned artist famous for her monumental, abstract works. Born and raised in Newark, New Jersey, Booker received a BA in Sociology from Rutgers University (1976) and a MFA from the City College of New York (1993) and studied a variety of disciplines, including African dance, ceramics, weaving, basketry and tai’ chi. Her diverse educational background shaped her artistic practices in a wide range of media from sculpting and painting to collage and photography. Booker is perhaps best known, however, for her elaborate sculptures made of discarded materials such as rubber tires which explore themes of race, economy, globalization, and gender.
Booker began creating large, outdoor sculptures in the early 1990s. The process of crafting her monumental, complex pieces is enormously physical and involves transporting tires and other materials before slicing, twisting, and weaving them into new forms. Her rubber tire works, with their various tones and textures, are a reflection of human diversity and the treads themselves evoke African scarification and textile design, and the tires themselves are a broader reference to industrialization, consumer culture, and their environmental impact. In keeping with her boundless creativity, Booker views her own body as an extension of her oeuvre and her personal aesthetic often incorporates large, sculptural headdresses of African textiles.
Booker has exhibited in group and solo exhibitions nationally and internationally and was the recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Grant in 2002 and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2005. Her works are in more than 40 public collections, including the National Museum of African American History and Art, Washington, DC; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and she was honored with a retrospective, Chakaia Booker: The Observance, at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami in 2021.
