拍品 64

Born into slavery in circa 1852, Bill Traylor did not begin drawing until he was in his eighties while living essentially as a homeless man on the streets of Montgomery, Alabama. His drawings and paintings on cardboard were all executed during the brief period between 1939 and 1942. Like many of his contemporaries working during the Great Depression-Reginald Marsh, Ben Shahn and others--Traylor's imagery was taken from his immediate surroundings, as can be seen in Untitled (Couple Fighting), an animated scene and a classic, large drawing by the artist. This everyday scene is transformed through the artist's fertile imagination, flawless line and innate compositional sense to create a powerfully reductive work that is infused with the artist's distinctive and whimsical humor. PROPERTY FROM THE ROBERT M. GREENBERG COLLECTION

BILL TRAYLOR (c. 1852-1949)

Untitled

细节

BILL TRAYLOR (c. 1852-1949)
Untitled
colored pencil on paper
9¼ x 8 in. (23.5 x 20.3 cm.)
Executed circa 1939-1942

来源

Charles Shannon, Montgomery, Alabama
Ricco/Maresca Gallery, New York

展览

Newark, New Jersey, Robeson Center Gallery, Rutgers University, Black American Folk Art, February-March 1986.

拍品专文

In addition to images of animals, people and houses, Bill Traylor also created a series of enigmatic abstract works, such as Untitled, that defy easy categorization. The forms evoke objects (such as baskets) or architectural forms. Some scholars have suggested that the images have their roots in Traylor's past, but they are more likely to be abstracted forms that have been pared down by the artist's innate reductive inclinations. With their uncompromising purity and relationship to the history of abstraction, in time they may be seen as the most important in his oeuvre.