dieser beitrag wurde verfasst in: englisch (eng/en)
name: Walker
vorname: William
wikidata-repräsentation: Q196401
gnd-repräsentation: 133451933
biografische angaben: Born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1927, died Chicago on September 12, 2011. Notable muralist in Chicago. He was one of the founders of the Organization for Black American Culture (OBAC) and one of the leaders in the project involving the Wall of Respect. He was also one of the critical founders of the mural movements in Chicago during the 1960s.
Walker grew up in Chicago. He served in World War II and also in the Korean War, entitling him to four years of college on the GI Bill. At the Columbus Gallery of Art (now Columbus College of Art and Design) he studied fine arts and won the school's forty-seventh annual group exhibition award, the first African American to be so honored. After graduating in 1954 he went to Memphis, where he painted his first murals. It was there, while supervising the photographing of a group of "toilworn" men, women, and children picking cotton on a plantation as the subject of a mural commission, Walker said, that "I decided to dedicate my work to speaking for them and their cause, and others like them". He returned to Chicago in 1955, earning his living as a decorative painter and later postal worker, with the idea of wall painting always in his mind. in 1967 he became involved in a project with members of the Organization for Black American Culture, which involved not only artists but musicians, writers, and educators, to create a mural that honored African American heroes. Located in the black community where he lived and intended for a black audience, the resulting Wall of Respect was the first outdoor community effort and is credited with inspiring a "people's art" movement that spread across the country. Although The Wall of Respect was in a high crime area, it was never defaced, but only a few years after it was completed the building was declared unsafe and had to be demolished. A small panel fragment remains, in the collection of the Du Sable Museum. Walker became active in the newly developing Chicago mural movement, because he saw public art as a way of building self-respect among his fellow blacks. In 1970, he, Eugene Eda, and muralist John Pitman Weber formed the Chicago Mural Group, made up of artists of many ethnic groups, which is still active today, now renamed the Chicago Public Art Group. Walker has won numerous awards and is responsible for many community murals. He strongest belief, he says, is in the brotherhood of man.