Robert J. Williams *88

Robert Williams, professor in the Department of History of Art and Architecture at the University of California, Santa Barbara, died April 16, 2018, at age 63.

Williams graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor’s degree in 1976 and a master’s degree in 1979. In 1982 he earned an MFA and in 1988 he earned a Ph.D. in art and archaeology from Princeton. In 1986, while working on his dissertation, he received the Yates Fellowship from the Warburg Institute at the University of London.

In 1988 Williams joined the faculty at UC, Santa Barbara. From 1990 to 1991 he studied at the American Academy in Rome under an NEH post-doctoral fellowship. His areas of expertise included Italian Renaissance art and art theory, the history of art theory, and art-history methodology. He wrote several important works. Cambridge University Press recently published his last book, Raphael and the Redefinition of Art in Renaissance Italy.

From 1992 to 1993 he was the recipient of a University of California Regents’ Humanities Faculty Fellowship. In 2000 Williams was a visiting associate professor at Yale, and in 2003 at UCLA.

Williams is survived by his wife, Carole Paul, and a daughter. The UCSB campus flag was lowered to half-staff in his memory.

Graduate memorials are prepared by the APGA.