Bill Traylor

One of America's classic Outsider Artists, Bill Traylor was active for only several years (ca. 1939-1942), but is today recognized internationally for the over 1200, vibrant drawings on cardboard he produced on the sidewalks of Depression-era Montgomery, Alabama. Born a slave in 1854, Traylor remained on the plantation on which he was raised, to work and raise his own family in 1928. Forced to leave his job at a shoe factory due to a disability, he became homeless, yet was granted refuge at night in shops in th city's African-American neighborhood on Monroe Street (currently Monroe Avenue). His work was collected and championed by local artist Charles Shannon, who recognized Traylor's genius. Shannon had the foresight to hold Traylor's oeuvre in storage until reintroducing it to the artworld during the late 1970s, just as interest in Outsiders was growing. Traylor drew scenes of both rural and urban daily life, inspired in equal parts by memory and imagination. Ranging from simple portraits of Monroe Street denizens to complex, activated compositions the artist called "exciting events," these drawings tell stories by means of a reductive, formal sensibility in which many have recognized hallmarks of the modern. Men in top hats, women with arms akimbo, ferocious dogs, drunkards, children, stubborn mules, and lively domestic quarrels have inspired scholarly interpretations ranging from the plausible to the ridiculous. A true Outsider, Traylor's brilliantly conceived tall tales, made for an audience of passers-by, will never lose their mystery. - Jenifer P. Borum