Bill was born into slavery in 1856 and remained on the same farm until the 1930's, when he was evicted. At the age of 80 he moved to Montgomery. Homeless and sleeping on shop floors he started drawing scenes from his childhood and early life and selling his art to make a living. You can read more about Bill Traylor from the link above.
Bill was an outsider artist, an artist with no training and little exposure to art. But it never ceases to amaze me that I keep seeing common threads with Bill's art and other artists. Obviously, I expect certain similarities with other modernists, Lowry to name just one, but it goes deeper than this.
Last week when I was in London I spent a couple of hours in the National Gallery where I saw this painting titled "Saint Michael triumphant over the Devil with the Donor Antonio Juan", it's by Bartolome Bermejo, painted between 1460 and 1498.
See Bermejo's devil!
Bill Traylor - Scary Creature, 1939-1942Collection of the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts
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Self-taught artists are fascinating, and I can't wait to learn more about Bill Traylor. I LOVE art. But I still have so much to learn and, me being me, am going about it in a meandering way. So thanks for the heads up about Mr. Traylor!
ReplyDeleteThis looks really interesting. Thanks for posting it and for the link!
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