Animals and Tree

DateProbably 1939-1942

Artist/Maker Bill Traylor (1852/6-1949)

OriginAmerica, Alabama, Montgomery (probably)

Mediumcolored pencil on cardboard

DimensionsFramed: 17 1/4" x 12 1/2" x 1 1/4"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase, Dr. and Mrs. T. Marshall Hahn, Jr.

Object number2000.201.4

Label TextBill Traylor was born a slave on a plantation near Benton, Alabama and, after emancipation, remained on the property of his former master, George Traylor (from whom the artist took his surname). In 1938, he moved to Montgomery and began producing paintings and drawings, eventually creating some 1,500 to 1,800 artworks.

Traylor's extraordinary body of work is both abstract and figurative. His innate sense of form and placement and his concise conveyance of mood imbue his paintings and drawings with clarity, wit, and grace.
ProvenanceLuise Ross Gallery, New York, NY.