Malicious Resplendence

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1560973668 ISBN 13: 9781560973669

Publisher: Fantagraphics Books, 1999

This infamous artist's paintings get the lush treatment they deserve in this career-spanning collection. Williams' transcendent work integrates his formative underground influences with a mastery of fine art techniques.

A career-spanning collection of the infamous lowbrow master. Williams sprang from the custom car culture of Southern California and the roots of the Underground Comix movement (Williams, of course, was one of the founding ZAP artists, along with R. Crumb), ultimately transcending the constraints of both by cultivating his mastery of oil paints and forging a career as the preeminent artist among a generation of imagist painters gathering inspiration from the shadowed corners of contemporary culture. Williams singlehandedly became the model of the "Outsider" art movement, influencing a generation of artists to create without concern for the fine art world, held in contempt by Williams. It's a feeling which had been reciprocated in kind for years by the established fine art community, although Williams' sheer mastery of his craft has caused a grudging retreat.

About the Author:

In addition to being one of the seven, original Zap Comix contributors, Robert Williams’s influence on alternative art is immeasurable. From his endeavors to broaden the possibilities for young artists to gain exposure sprang the well-known art chronicle, Juxtapoz magazine. He is the subject of a recent documentary, Mr. Bitchin’. He lives in Chatsworth, CA with his wife Suzanne.

Review:

“Williams has remained, most fundamentally, a powerful, passionate, and incredibly prolific painter.”
- Mark David Nevins