Philemona Williamson

Philemona Williamson
Born	1951 New York City
Nationality	United States
Occupation	Artist
Known for	Seasons

Philemona Williamson (born 1951) is a well-known artist from New York City.

Williamson was born in New York City in 1951. Her African-American parents were employed by a wealthy Greek family, and she grew up in their Manhattan home. She recalls a diversity of cultures but no racism when growing up. Her father was the chauffeur and her mother the housekeeper. She said of the environment in the home on Sutton Place that she and her parents maintained "a kind of quiet gentility" while their employers were involved in an endless "Greek passion play." She attended Bennington College, earning a Bachelor's degree in 1973, and went on to New York University where she obtained a Master's in painting in 1979. At Bennington College she embraced post-modernism, despite the fashion for abstraction in the art department.

Williamson has worked at Parsons School of Design, The Getty Institute for Education in the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Bard College, Rhode Island School of Design and Metropolitan Museum of Art. She was awarded a Joan Mitchell Foundation grant in 1997. Other awards include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Painting (1988), Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (1990) and New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship (1991). Williamson belongs to the Brooklyn Art Association. As of 2010 she lived and worked in Upper Montclair, New Jersey, with a studio in Bloomfield.

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