Still Life

William Aubrey Walmsley was born October 9, 1923, in Tuscumbia, Alabama, although his family soon moved to Pueblo, Colorado, where he finished high school. His college career at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa was augmented by study abroad and in New York; he earned his BFA in 1951 and MA in 1953.

It is the “additional study” section of his vita which gives one the most insight into his spirit of adventure and shrewd appraisal of his educational opportunities. Bill Walmsley, child of the Depression Era in America, managed a continental education on the slender resources provided him by the GI Bill after the war, and then in New York by means of his own careful planning and hard work: for, as he said to his students, “you have to be the one that criticizes...get to the point you criticize yourself. And know what you know. That’s the reason I thought I needed to go to Paris and that’s the reason I thought I had to go to New York.”