This is my chance to talk about my favorite artist of all time, Robert Williams. I was first exposed to his work in art school, when I got my hands on the infamous Zap Comics. I was blown away when I first saw the erotic comics by Robert Crumb, S. Clay Wilson and, of course, Robert himself.
In the mid-1980s, I was struck again when I saw his paintings at the Zero One Gallery in Los Angeles. He would have to be one of my main influences, so how lucky I was to have such a famous artist write the foreword to my art book The Red Box.
Mr. Williams has a long history of involvement in American hot rod culture, having been involved early on with Ed “Big Daddy” Roth and Ratfink.
He started Juxtapoz magazine in 1994, and is credited with starting the lowbrow art movement… a movement that began with hotrod art and “kustom kulture,” but has grown to include so much more.
To say that Williams’ art is pin up art is only part of the equation… it is cinematic, film noir and heroic on the scale of 19th century French salon painting. Here is a vulgar artist with a great fine art pedigree. His work is included in many high-profile art collections, and there is a waiting list to pick up any of his pieces!
His psychedelic art includes devil girls, supervixens, femme fatales, punk rock girls, and all things spooky. He then adds hot rod art, and it’s a full-scale surreal painting!
His most famous piece of artwork is probably the cover of the 1990 Appetite for Destruction album for the band Guns and Roses.
