Tyler School of Art and Architecture

William Villalongo, MFA ’01

William Villalongo was born in 1975 in Hollywood, Florida, yet he spent most of his childhood in Bridgeton, New Jersey. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Villalongo received his BFA from The Cooper Union School of Art, MFA from Tyler School of Art at Temple University and attended Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture. His figurative paintings, works on paper and sculpture represent the Black subject against notions of race, exploring metaphors of mythology and liberation. His curatorial projects include American Beauty at Susan Inglett Gallery in 2013 and Black Pulp! touring nationally between 2016-2018. These projects explore the intersections of politics, history and art. Villalongo is the recipient of the prestigious Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptor's Grant and the Hassam, Speicher, Betts and Symons Purchase Fund from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

In 2022, he received the Jules Guerin & Harold M. English Rome Prize Fellow in Visual Art. His work is included in several notable collections, including the Studio Museum in Harlem, The Whitney Museum of American Art, Princeton University Art Museum, El Museo del Barrio and the National Gallery of Art. His work has been reviewed in Art in America, The New Yorker, the New York Times and other notable publications. The artist is represented by Susan Inglett Gallery, New York and is an associate professor at The Cooper Union School of Art.