‘Ahead of his time’: Guyanese artist gets London show amid reappraisal

Aubrey Williams produced huge, colourful abstract paintings and was influenced by music and climate issues

An artist whose work was part of the first wave of abstract art to hit the UK and presaged the climate breakdown protests as well as debates over the legacies of British colonialism is undergoing an overdue" reappraisal, according to experts and critics.

Aubrey Williams, the Guyanese artist who moved to Britain in the 1950s, was a respected figure in his lifetime and the subject of several exhibitions in the UK. But after his death from cancer in 1990, the artist's influence and the legacy of his abstract painting has slowly faded from view in Britain.