Walls of Prophecy and Protest: William Walker and the Roots of a Revolutionary Public Art Movement

"Walls of Prophecy and Protest is an illustrated history of the life, work, and legacy of famed Chicago muralist William Walker by Chicago arts journalist Jeff Huebner"--
This book profiles the life and art of William Walker, an African American artist who painted street murals in Chicago, Detroit, Memphis, and other cities in the 1970s and 1980s. The book draws on interviews with Walker by arts journalist Jeff W. Huebner over a period of 20 years, starting in 1990. The interviews offer insight on the Wall of Respect, the Wall of Truth, Walker’s labor murals, and his anti-Reagan murals. The book contains a total of 43 color photos of his work. Annotation ©2019 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)
Walls of Prophecy and Protest is an illustrated history of the life, work, and legacy of famed Chicago muralist William Walker by Chicago arts journalist Jeff Huebner.
Chicago is home to more intact African American street murals from the 1970s and ’80s than any other U.S. city. Among Chicago’s greatest muralists is the legendary William “Bill” Walker (1927–2011), compared by art historians to Diego Rivera and called the most accomplished contemporary practitioner of the classical mural tradition. Though his art could not have been more public, Walker maintained a low profile during his working life and virtually withdrew from the public eye after his retirement in 1989. Author Jeff W. Huebner met Walker in 1990 and embarked on a series of insightful interviews that stretched over the next two decades. Those meetings and years of research form the basis of Walls of Prophecy and Protest, the story of Walker’s remarkable life and the movement that he inspired. Featuring forty-three color images of Walker’s work, most long since destroyed or painted over, this handsome edition reveals the artist who was the primary figure behind Chicago’s famed Wall of Respect and who created numerous murals that depicted African American historical figures, protested social injustice, and promoted love, respect, racial unity, and community change.