In 1964, Williams travelled to Europe on the Helena Rubinstein Travelling Art Scholarship. His success during this highly creative period enabled him to concentrate on painting full-time, freed from financial pressures.
Williams received critical acclaim in Australia and internationally during this period. He achieved a breakthrough in his search for an aesthetic with which to describe the Australian bush- in his You Yangs series (I and II), he struck upon an iconography as idiosyncratic as handwriting and which rendered his works immediately recognisable.