David Emmett Williams (Tonkawa name: Tosque; August 20, 1933 – November 8, 1985)[1] was a Native American painter, who was Kiowa/Tonkawa/Kiowa-Apache from Oklahoma.
[2] He studied with Dick West (Southern Cheyenne) at Bacone College[3] and won numerous national awards for his paintings.
[5][6] Williams studied at the Indian Art Center in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, under Olle Nordmark[7] and later at Bacone College with fellow Native American painters, Joan Hill (Muscogee/Cherokee) and Doc Tate Nevaquaya (Comanche) under Dick West.
[4] That same year, he also did a two-man show with sand painter, David Villasenor, at the Pasadena Public Library.
In 1974, he won the Grand Prize at the Trail of Tears Art Show at the Cherokee Heritage Center.
[13] During his lifetime, Williams had multiple and profitable exhibitions throughout the United States including at the Arizona State Museum at the University of Arizona in Tucson; the First Annual National American Indian Art Exposition in Charlotte, North Carolina; the Laguna Gloria Art Museum of Austin, Texas; the McCombs Gallery at Bacone College in Muskogee, Oklahoma; the Owensboro Museum of Fine Art in Owensboro, Kentucky; among many others.