SAUGATUCK, MICHIGAN (January 18, 2023) – Ox-Bow School of Art announces the Peter Williams Award. This new award will be presented annually to a BIPOC Alum whose teaching and/or mentorship exemplifies excellence and care for the student experience, life-long learning, and creative exploration. Each selected awardee will nominate a non-traditional and/or young artist for a scholarship to attend Pre-College Program, Art on the Meadow, or a non-credit course the following summer.
The award is named in memory of former faculty member Peter Williams who invested deeply in the students of Ox-Bow and embodied these same virtues. The award was first introduced in December 2022 in Chicago at Ox-Bow’s benefit, Winter Break.
“When we learned of Peter’s passing, we also learned from his former students how deeply he had impacted their lives,” said Shannon Stratton, Ox-Bow’s Executive Director. “We wanted to celebrate Peter’s legacy and the experience of artists studying at Ox-Bow in an intimate and intensive environment, where faculty have the potential to really change an artist’s practice in just a short time. We also wanted to honor and amplify the many contributions of BIPOC artists to our educational community and the educational art communities nationwide.”
Williams was an educator, artist, and activist who not only impacted Ox-Bow, but shaped the Arts community on a national level. He taught The Portrait as Starting Point at Ox-Bow during the summers of 2015 and 2017. At our 2022 Winter Break Benefit, we celebrated the legacy of Williams and the influence he has had on Ox-Bow’s campus and Alumni. Following his passing, the Peter Williams Estate gifted a portion of Williams’s library to our campus. The Ox-Bow community misses the departed artist and educator and will be forever grateful for the impact he left on our campus, an impact and legacy which is still ongoing.
In Williams’s works, his paintings were an extension of his voice and convictions as an activist.
One of his last works that received significant attention was the George Flloyd Triptych; however, Williams had been speaking out against mass incarceration and police brutality long before it gained a new level of national attention in 2020. Williams made it his life’s work to bring attention to racial and systematic injustice: doing so in his lectures, interviews, and paintings. Just as the colors of Williams’s paintings are unabashedly bold and direct, so too was the artist’s intent each time he approached a new canvas. Over the course of his career, Williams was awarded a Ford Foundation Fellowship, Artists’ Legacy Foundation Award, The American Academy of Arts and Letters Purchase Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
The Peter Williams Award will next be given at the Winter Break benefit in Chicago. Nominations for future award winners, including the 2023 recipient are welcomed.
Founded in 1910, Ox-Bow School of Art and Artists’ Residency is an arts-based nonprofit with a rich legacy of empowering and investing in artists. Their year around programming welcomes degree-seeking students, professional artists, and those new to the arts. The 115 acre campus – located alongside and protected by the dunes, forests, and waters of Saugatuck – cultivates a space that does not simply host its residents but enhances their practice. Both its facilities and faculty edify their longstanding mission: to serve as a network of creative resources, people, and ideas amidst an energizing natural environment inspired by its rich artistic history and fueled by the potential of a vital future.
Featured Image: Headshot from Peter Williams estate via nytimes.com