Douglas R. Williams was a sculptor and community artist who was involved for decades with the South Side Community Art Center, where some of his work is on display and where he mentored many young artists.
He also helped start what is now the Black Creativity program at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry, providing educational programs and African-American art exhibits.
As Williams got older, he shifted his sculptures from heavy metal and wood pieces to more lightweight materials, according to friend and fellow artist Sherman Beck. That included a series of African masks constructed of repurposed and recycled plastic bottles and jugs.
“It was really innovative, exciting,” Beck said. “The masks really have the feel of traditional African masks, but in very modern materials. There was a feel like the African DNA was transformed to modern times.”
Williams, 80, died of natural causes April 2 at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, according to his son Douglas A. Williams. He lived for many years on Chicago’s South Side.
He was born in 1938 in Houston. He moved to Chicago with an older sister about 1954, part of the Great Migration of African-Americans seeking greater opportunities in northern cities. At Hyde Park High School, he played trombone with several bands, was active in the ROTC and helped design the school’s yearbook in his 1958 graduation year, his son said.
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Williams was mentored by the late Margaret Taylor-Burroughs, who encouraged him to pursue a bachelor’s degree in fine art from the School of the Art Institute. There he focused on sculpting, encouraged by instructors who recognized he wasn’t getting the results he wanted from flat two-dimensional canvases.
His time at the Art Institute was interrupted by a call-up to the Army to serve with the Signal Corps in Southeast Asia. He returned to the Art Institute to complete work for his degree.
His involvement with the South Side Community Art Center began in the 1960s when he lived in a coach house behind the center, according to Diane Dinkins-Carr, a former board president of the center. Williams was a longtime board member and was executive director of the center in the 1970s, Dinkins-Carr said.
In addition to his role as a founder and curator of the Black Creativity program, Dinkins-Carr said Williams took part in the creation of the “Wall of Respect,” a large mural on a building at 43rd Street and Langley Avenue that celebrated black artists in the late 1960s.
“He was very rooted in the black arts movement in Chicago,” his son said.
Williams was also an early supporter of what is now Gallery 37 Center for the Arts in Chicago, which provides a venue for young people, families and adults to participate in several innovative arts programs.
“He worked on what he wanted to work on and always mentored others to do the same and follow their passion,” Williams’ son said.
For the elder Williams, those passions also included music, a brief stint as part-owner of a nightclub, occasional work as a carpenter and handyman and even forays into the culinary arts making barbecue sauce.
For about 10 years, from around 1990 to 2000, he worked as a custodian at Calumet High School. While he was never one dimensional in his interests and pursuits, his art was a constant, as was his eye for inspiration.
“As an older person, he wasn’t able to lift those heavy (metal and wood) sculptures,” his son said.
But his artist’s eye saw the possibilities — and some hints of human faces — in discarded laundry detergent jugs and bleach bottles. The idea for a series of masks was born.
“It was almost like an experiment,” his son said.
Williams pressed and painted the bottles, adding cut-outs for eyes, reshaping spouts for mouths and handles for noses and adding textile materials as decoration and for wall hanging.
His aim, his son said, was to make 100 of the masks, although in the end he completed far fewer. Some of the masks are still on display at the Art Center, according to Beck.
An example of his earlier and weightier work, a steel bust he did of himself, is on display in the lobby of the Chicago Urban League building, 4510 S. Michigan Ave.
Williams had an exhibit of his masks in the South Side Community Art Center in 2016, his son said. The South Michigan Avenue venue was fitting, given his long connection with the center going back to the 1960s.
“He’s been an integral part of that place for a very long time,” Beck said.
In addition to his son, Williams is survived by his wife , Anner; a daughter, Aisha; his other sons Sandy and Jason; a sister, Dorothy Cephus; and two grandchildren.
Services were held.
Megan is a freelance reporter.