The Cooper Union, BFA, 1999
Tyler School of Art at Temple University, MFA, 2001
Lives and Works in Brooklyn, NY
WILLIAM VILLALONGO (b. 1975) represents the Black subject against the backdrop of race in America. The artist is known for his use of black velvet cut paper, in which excision and collage are utilized to underscore historical erasure and overturn canonical narratives. The results of his approach are dynamic portraits that reference cultural histories, emphasizing diaspora, deep time, freedom, beauty, and metamorphosis. Villalongo is a 2021 recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Purchase Prize and the 2022 Rome Prize from the American Academy. In 2024, Villalongo opened a solo museum exhibition originating at the Grinnell College Museum of Art, Grinnell, traveling to the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Madison; Museum of Art, University of Colorado, Boulder; and Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia. He is currently working on a major project with data scientist Shraddha Rammani bringing W.E.B. DuBois' research tracking the progress of Black people following Emancipation up to the present. Printing Black America will be included in a group show this Fall at the Print Center NY. His work can be found in the permanent collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore; International African American Museum, Charleston; Grinnell College Museum of Art, Grinnell; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Philadelphia; Princeton University Art Museum; Studio Museum in Harlem, NYC; Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo; Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC; and the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven among others.