Sylvia H. Williams (née Sylvia Louise Hill; February 10, 1936 – February 28, 1996), was an American museum director, curator, art historian, and scholar of African art.

She helped develop the study and appreciation of African art as a significant aesthetic and intellectual pursuit in the United States.

Williams served as a curator in the Department of African, Oceanic and New World Cultures at the Brooklyn Museum in 1973.

[2][3] In 1983, Williams received a Candace Award for History from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women.

[1] In October 1997, the National Museum of African Art of the Smithsonian Institution launched the exhibition The Poetics of the Line: Seven Artists of the Nsukka group, which was also the inaugural exhibition of the Sylvia H. Williams Gallery named in her honor.