While living in London and travelling in Europe in the mid-1950s, Williams was introduced to the most recent trends in European and American art through exhibitions at The Tate in London and elsewhere. He was impressed and excited by an exhibition of German expressionist painting in London, and by the work of American abstract expressionist artists such as Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, Barnett Newman, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko. He found a particular affinity with Arshile Gorky – whose work, he said, "fitted in some way with own perception" – and with Roberto Matta. He traced his affinity with Matta to a shared experience of colonialism: "It's the smell of the presence of the conquistadors. It's the smell of a loss, and a replacement of lesser than what was destroyed". These various influences had a significant impact on his artistic development in subsequent years.