Robert Williams show opens at Art Museum of Sonoma County

In the 1960s, a young California artist named Robert Williams, formally trained as a painter, found himself stuck with the wrong skill set to fit the current fashion in fine art.

'I was caught in an uncomfortable situation,' he recalled. 'I started my art career in the middle of abstract expressionism. That was a movement that de-emphasized craftsmanship and draftsmanship, and concentrated more on expression. I came from a background that was considered basic illustration, and representational art was not in favor.'

So Williams turned away from high art, as it was defined then, and took the low-brow approach. Where that decision led him will be shown colorfully in his new show, 'Slang Aesthetics,' opening Friday, June 5, at the Art Museum of Sonoma County in Santa Rosa.

Williams first found a home for his craft as art director for famed custom car designer and hot rod icon Ed 'Big Daddy' Roth.

In 1969, Williams joined the vanguard of counter-culture cartoonists on the seminal underground comic book, Zap Comix. Working with the stellar lineup of R. Crumb, Gilbert Shelton, S. Clay Wilson, Spain Rodriguez, Rick Griffin and Victor Moscoso, Williams shattered taboos and shocked conventional sensibilities.

'I came up from a background of B movie posters, pulp magazine covers, comic books, hot rod art, surfing art and psychedelic art — a number of graphic idioms that weren't accepted by the academic art world, but nonetheless, stress imagination, adventure and challenge,' Williams said.

Throughout his pop culture experiments, Williams continued to develop as an oil painter, producing what he called his 'Super Cartoon' series, created in the style of the old masters but with pop culture content.

This work was included along with his comics work in his first book, 'The Lowbrow Art of Robert Williams,' published in 1982 by the San Francisco-based Rip Off Press. That opened up the next stage of his career.

'Over the years, I've made a pretty good living, painting pretty much what I want,' said Williams, now 72, speaking by phone from his home in the Los Angeles suburb of Chatworth.

In the 1980s, Williams illustrated covers for punk albums, and in 1994, he founded Juxatpoz Art & Culture Magazine, which has grown since then from an initial circulation of 23,000 to more than 120,000.

Williams' terms for his own work include 'feral art,' 'a soft assault on sophistication' and 'gratuitous imagination.'

The Santa Rosa show will feature some 60 paintings and sculptures by Williams, almost all done since 2008.

The exhibit opens with a 'Hot Rod Street Party,' instead of a more formal reception, from 5 to 8 p.m. today at the Art Museum of Sonoma County, 505 B St., Santa Rosa. Admission costs $10-$15.

Williams will speak and sign books at 4 p.m. Saturday, June 6, at the museum, with tickets prices at $15.

The show runs through Sept. 20. Museum hours are 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. Admission: $7-$10; free for children age 12 or younger. Information: 579-1500, ext. 16; artmsc.org.

You can reach staff writer Dan Taylor at 521-5243 or dan.taylor@pressdemocrat.com.