Oil Field Worker
Richard Williams Original Scratchboard

This item is sold.  It has been placed here in our online archives as a service for researchers and collectors.

Williams Oil Field Worker
Williams Oil Field Worker Williams Oil Field Worker
Richard F. “Dick” Williams
Oil Field Worker
American: c. Mid 20th Century
Scratchboard
Unsigned
13.5 x 16.25 inches, image
16.5 x 17.5 inches, overall
Provenance: Estate of Richard F. Williams, Crestwood, New York
Sold, please inquire as to the availability of similar items.

This scratchboard illustration depicts an American oil field worker.  Such workers were, and still are, commonly known as “roughnecks.” By highlighting his chiseled features with strong lighting and choosing a vantage point looking slightly upward, Williams ennobles his subject, who comes across as an icon of the rugged American man.  The hat and the way he is dressed suggest this work was probably created in the 1930s or 1940s.  This work was possibly among various executed by Williams for Sinclair Oil Company.

Scratchboard is an illustrator’s medium that reverses the usual pen-and-ink process of drawing black lines on a white ground.  A smooth white illustration board is coated with a black surface, and the artist uses a sharp tool to scratch away the surface, leaving white lines.

Richard F. “Dick” Williams studied at the Buffalo School of Fine Arts, the American Art School and with Robert Brackman.  He worked as an illustrator for a number of New York advertising agencies and magazines such as Redbook and Collier’s.   His work for these publications is characterized by a warmth and playfulness as well as clever compositional ideas.   The style was one popular in publications of the Forties and Fifties -- pictures celebrating postwar American life in a realist style, sometimes with gentle humor.  In the latter part of his career he turned exclusively to painting, and was best known as a portrait painter but also gained recognition for his landscapes, still life and flower studies.  Williams was represented by Portraits Inc. in New York and produced commissioned portraits for private and public collections.  He also became active in Westchester County art associations.  He actively exhibited his work at many galleries and museums including The American Artists Professional League, Allied Artists of America, Museum of Fine Arts in Springfield and Fairleigh Dickenson University.  This drawing is from a collection of original art from the artist’s estate, some signed and some unsigned, purchased by our gallery in the mid 1990s.

Please see our other oil field worker illustration acquired from the artist's estate.