A self portrait with crutches

Mose Tolliver came to painting late in his life. The child of sharecroppers in rural Montgomery County, Alabama, he dropped out of school at an early age. In the 1960's, while he was working at a Montgomery furniture company, some sheets of marble fell on his legs, permanently disabling him. His employer, who painted as a hobby, encouraged Tolliver to take up painting in his forced retirement, and using house paint on pasteboard, he painted a red bird. "After that, I painted birds for two or three years 'cause I didn't know nothin' else to paint," he has said. Tolliver has not lacked subjects since then, but he also returns to themes repeatedly, refining and redefining them. (Robert Ely, Mose T's Slapout Family Album, Montgomery 1996, pp.45-46)