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From the UC Santa Barbara Art History website:
Prof. Robert (Bob) Williams, internationally renowned scholar of Italian Renaissance Art and of Art Theory, passed away on April 16, 2018, after battling a serious illness. Prof. Williams received his Ph.D. in 1988 from Princeton University. In the same year, he joined the faculty at UCSB. Prof. Williams was a Fulbright-Hays scholar and was awarded the Dame Frances Yates Fellowship from the Warburg Institute, University of London; the Villa I Tatti Fellowship from Harvard University; and an NEH Postdoctoral Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome.
In addition to numerous articles, essays, reviews and co-edited volumes, he was the author of four books: Art, Theory, and Culture in Sixteenth-Century Italy: From Techne to Metatechne (Cambridge University Press, 1997); Art Theory: An Historical Introduction (Blackwell, 2004); The Zodiac of Wit: Peter Meller and the Graphic Imagination (UCSB Art, Design & Architecture Museum, 2012); and Raphael and the Redefinition of Art in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge University Press, 2018). We are grateful that Prof. Williams’s book on Raphael appeared in time for him to see it before he passed away.
During his nearly thirty years at UCSB, Prof. Williams chaired or co-chaired many Ph.D. dissertations, including those of Paul Anderson (’08), Margaret Bell, Blair Davis (’09), Thomas DePasquale, Jackson Dodge (’12), Michelle Duran-McClure (’03), Abelina Galustian, Shannon Gilmore, Sophia McCabe, Allan Langdale (’96), Staci Scheiwiller (’09) and Helen Taschian (’13). Our thoughts are with his wife, Dr. Carole Paul, and daughter, Julia.
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Robin Waslick (Hession)
So very sorry to hear this news.
What an accomplished life he led.
Sincere condolences to Bob’s family.
Robin Waite
Bob will be missed. He was a well accomplished author and professor, and the world was a better place with him. I'm sure he is in a very good place now as well.
God be with you Bob, rest in peace
Patricia Flairty (Flairty)
Stephen Woodruff
I was not a close friend of Bob's at Penncrest. Always impressed with his focus and direction and curiosity for learning new things. Sorry to hear of a classmates loss. Very accomplished life RIP. Prayers to Family.
Mary Frances Wright (Francesca Wright)
Remember when he would write William F. Buckley quotes on the chaulk board every day? I'm so glad he went into art and not politics. I confess I was attracted to his intellegence and endlessly amused by his wry ways. Sorry to hear that he passed away so young.
Karen Leigh (Underwood)
My indelible memory of Bob was him saying, chin on fist like The Thinker, "as Goethe would say...." Indeed a unique, fun and intelligent man. I'm glad to read of his accomplishments in his perfect niche. My condolences and prayers for God's comfort to his family.
Karen Leigh Underwood
Steve Martin
I've known Bob since 7th grade as we lived in the same neighborhood. He was my asst. coach when we coached Senior League baseball in '77 and '78. Both our younger brothers were on the team and we won the championship both years. He even drove to the Jersey shore to bring back our star pitcher for the championship game. In August, 1977, I was over in Europe visiting Per in Sweden and met up with Bob outside of Stutgart, Germany, where he was studying. I went with his class to tour renovated castles the next day, and he translated German for me on the tour. I used to joke with him about the titles of his theses about arcane Rennaissance painters that nobody ever heard about. I even had him do a pen and ink drawing for my sister's wedding in '72. I think his fee was a hoagie.
I had no idea he was ill. Hopes and prayers for his family.