The Art of Bill Traylor (1854-1949)
Pat, Benedicte and I saw our second Bill Traylor exhibit last Friday. The New York Folk Art Museum had an exhibit in 2013 and Betty Cunningham Gallery just had an exhibit. We made it down to the Lower Eastside one day before it closed!
Bill was born a slave on George Traylor's plantation, and continued to work there after he was emancipated. At age 74 he moved to Montgomery Alabama and soon was homeless. Charles Shannon, a young artist, met Traylor at age 85, sitting in front of a blacksmith shop drawing with a pencil stub. He provided Traylor with art supplies for the next 3 years and bought over 1200 drawings from him. This exhibit was from the Shannon Collection.
His drawings are owned by many major museums and I made a composite drawing of images I liked at both exhibits.
2013:
2014:
Comments
Interesting art that he did.
Posted by: Donn | December 13, 2014 2:57 PM
Oh, very cool, Shirley, thank you for sharing!
Posted by: Cathy Johnson (Kate) | December 14, 2014 11:01 AM
What an interesting story about this man!
Posted by: Cathy Holtom | December 14, 2014 2:47 PM
Thank you, Shirley. I will look for more information on this artist--fascinating story. It sounds like he did his best to make up for lost time!
Posted by: Kristi | December 15, 2014 3:22 AM