Construction with Exciting Event, 1939-1942

One of Bill Traylor's "exciting events," this work includes multiple figures and animals interacting on and around an abstracted structural element. Traylor was inspired by the architecture of Montgomery, and research by Fred Baron and Jeffrey Wolf suggests that some of the artist's delineated constructions drew from the 1885 Court Square Fountain by Frederick MacMonnies, visible from the doorstep where Traylor worked. The construction in this composition, with its semi-circular center and blue spout, indeed seems to reference the Court Square landmark.