Bill Traylor was born on April 1, 1854 in Benton, Alabama, United States. His parents, Sally and Bill Calloway were slaves on the plantation of George Hartwell Traylor, a white cotton grower. He had five brothers and sisters, Liza, Henry, Frank, Jim, and Emet.
Traylor continued to work on the plantation of George Hartwell Traylor after his legal emancipation in 1863, but now as a farmhand and sharecropper.
In 1909 Traylor was farming in Montgomery County, Alabama, and in 1928 he left for the capital city of Montgomery. In Montgomery Traylor worked at a shoe factory.
When his rheumatism became too painful, he left his job and struggled to stay afloat. Essentially homeless, he began receiving government assistance in 1936 and found shelter in a back room of the Ross-Clayton Funeral Home, where he slept nights. Traylor spent his days on Monroe Street, the hub of the black neighbourhood in downtown Montgomery.
There he drew pictures on any available cardboard or paper. Using a straightedge and pencils, crayons, charcoal, or whatever he could find, Traylor drew animals, trees, houses, and figures, mostly black but sometimes white as well. Those components were rendered flat and geometric, formed from rectangles, triangles, and half-circles, and his compositions are devoid of conventional perspective or illusions of space. His pictures reference both life on the plantation and the activity he observed on the urban street.
Charles Shannon, a young white artist, discovered Traylor drawing on Monroe Street in 1939. Immediately taken with his work, Shannon bought some drawings and began supplying Traylor with materials. In 1940 he arranged to exhibit about 100 of Traylor’s works at the New South Gallery and School in Montgomery. From January 5 to January 19, 1942, the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in Riverdale, New York hosted another his exhibition "Bill Traylor: American Primitive (Work of an old Negro)". Nevertheless, while the exhibit introduced Traylor’s work to the larger New York art community, it did not result in the purchase of any Traylor pieces by any museum. Notably, Alfred Barr, the director of MoMA, offered to purchase several drawings for the museum’s collection, as well as his own personal one. However, after he only offered one or two dollars for each Traylor’s piece, the deal quickly fell through.
From 1942 to 1945, Traylor lived in Detroit, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C. After losing his leg to gangrene, Traylor moved back to Montgomery.
He died on October 23, 1949, at Oak Street Hospital in Montgomery, Alabama, United States. He was later buried at Mount Moriah Cemetery.
Bill Traylor is regarded today as one of the most important American artists of the twentieth century. He began to draw at the age of 85 and first was considered an example of "primitive" or "outsider" art. But now Traylor now holds a central position in the fields of "self-taught" and modern art.
From 1939 to 1942 Traylor produced nearly 1,500 pieces of art. His work finally began to receive broader attention only thirty years after his death.
His works were included in the 1982 exhibition “Black Folk Art in America: 1930–1980” at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Following that exhibition, Traylor was heralded as a great African American folk artist, prices for his work soared, and he was included in numerous exhibitions of outsider and folk art.
Quotes from others about the person
Charles Shannon: "He worked steadily in the days that followed and it rapidly became evident that something remarkable was happening: his subjects became more complex, his shapes stronger, and the inner rhythm of his work began to assert itself."
Traylor fathered a number of children over his lifetime. In 1884, Traylor started a family with Larisa Dunklin. By 1887 they had had three children: George, Pauline, and Sally. By 1898, the couple had five more children: Rueben, Easter, Alice, Lillian, and an unnamed "child". In 1887, Traylor fathered Nettie from another relationship.
Additionally, in the late 1890s, Traylor took a second wife, Laura Williams. The couple had five children: Clement, Will, Mack, John Henry, and Walter. In 1902 he had a son named Jimmie, with another woman.
In June 1939, Charles Shannon, a young, white artist, first noticed Traylor and his budding talent on Monroe Street. Intrigued, Shannon began to repeatedly stop by Traylor’s block to observe him working. Soon Shannon began to supply Traylor with poster paints, brushes, and drawing paper.
