Figures and Construction with Blue Border1939–194215 1/2 × 8"Poster paint and graphite on cardboardGift of Charles and Eugenia Shannon1991.34.10152804841Bill TraylorPaintings
Copyright for this work is under review.http://nodes.emuseum.com/BU1BGBAG/apis/emuseum/network/v1/vocabularies/termMaster1545028http://nodes.emuseum.com/BU1BGBAG/apis/emuseum/network/v1/vocabularies/termMaster1545185http://nodes.emuseum.com/BU1BGBAG/apis/emuseum/network/v1/vocabularies/termMaster1545186MontgomeryMontgomeryUnited StatesAlabamaWorks on PaperMontgomeryHow do we interpret the central visual axis in twenty similar works by Bill Traylor, around which animals and figures chase one another when not falling into empty space? Is this structure the public fountain from the everyday landscape of the artist, or a life-threatening statement that conjures up, all at once, the darkness of crucifixion (crosses), the brutality of lynchings (gallows), and the miseries of slavery (cotton presses)? Beyond his pictures, Traylor left few records of his own thoughts. As explored in the 2013 American Folk Art Museum exhibition Traylor in Motion: Wonders from New York Collections, each work is more than an isolated incident—on the contrary, they respond to each other, and form the sequences of a personal cinema. Instead of being merely a basic depiction, the subject becomes a visual statement structuring Traylor’s mind, bringing together hidden symbols from Kongo Vodou, Hoodoo, Southern Baptist, Freemasonry, and blues sources, as well as layers of references: slavery, uncensored violence in the Jim Crow era, and turbulence within the black enclave known as “Dark Town” in Montgomery.
Valérie Rousseau, “Untitled (Figures and Construction with Blue Border),” exhibition label for Self-Taught Genius: Treasures from the American Folk Art Museum. Stacy C. Hollander and Valérie Rousseau, curators. New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2014.
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information.
To help improve this record, please email photoservices@folkartmuseum.orgHow do we interpret the central visual axis in twenty similar works by Bill Traylor, around which animals and figures chase one another when not falling into empty space? Is this structure the public fountain from the everyday landscape of the artist, or a life-threatening statement that conjures up, all at once, the darkness of crucifixion (crosses), the brutality of lynchings (gallows), and the miseries of slavery (cotton presses)? Beyond his pictures, Traylor left few records of his own thoughts. As explored in the 2013 American Folk Art Museum exhibition Traylor in Motion: Wonders from New York Collections, each work is more than an isolated incident—on the contrary, they respond to each other, and form the sequences of a personal cinema. Instead of being merely a basic depiction, the subject becomes a visual statement structuring Traylor’s mind, bringing together hidden symbols from Kongo Vodou, Hoodoo, Southern Baptist, Freemasonry, and blues sources, as well as layers of references: slavery, uncensored violence in the Jim Crow era, and turbulence within the black enclave known as “Dark Town” in Montgomery.
Valérie Rousseau, “Untitled (Figures and Construction with Blue Border),” exhibition label for Self-Taught Genius: Treasures from the American Folk Art Museum. Stacy C. Hollander and Valérie Rousseau, curators. New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2014. PAINTING
During a three-year period of astounding creativity, Bill Traylor produced around 1,500 powerful works that drew upon a well of life experiences compressed into the most minimal of representations. Traylor was born into slavery and spent the majority of his life on the George Traylor Plantation in Benton, Alabama, where he remained as a freed farmworker after emancipation. At the age of eighty-four he moved to Montgomery and started creating drawings with found materials such as discarded pencil stubs, poster paint, and laundry shirt boards. His masterful works can be classed into two categories: spare geometric or figural compositions, and narrative works, such as this one, that Traylor called "exciting events." Reminiscent of stacked markers on African American gravesites, each stratum of these pictographic renderings reacts to the activity above and below.
The catalyzing force in this drawing is the large dog that has seemingly chased a cat to the top of a tree. The hysteria this has provoked is made palpable by the agitation seen in figures’ poses and expressions, the child dangling precariously from a limb, and the dramatic scale, the scene capped at the top by an imposingly large bird.
Stacy C. Hollander, "Untitled (Figures and Construction with Blue Border)," exhibition label for Jubilation|Rumination: Life, Real and Imagined. Stacy C. Hollander, curator. New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2012.Bill Traylor was a master of composition. He used simple forms and shapes in often marvelously complex figurations. Traylor called his narrative works “exciting events,” and they reveal the artist as a gifted storyteller. In them, many characters come together, often housed in a skeletal construction that doesn’t quite resemble a building. Figures and Construction with Blue Border is a strong example of one such work. Traylor demonstrated his consummate skill and confidence with his strong, unwavering pencil line, the sharply delineated forms, and the overall interaction of negative and positive space. By following the action from bottom to top and as directed by the outstretched, pointing fingers of several characters on the picture plane, the story becomes apparent—a dog has chased a cat to the heights of a tree or a house rooftop.
The familiar Traylor rendering of a dog appears here, but now the animal displays his teeth in a growl. The dog is artistically and narratively responsible for supporting all the action above it. On an odd structure that resembles a boat, a porch, or a tree, four people stand or leap about animatedly. An irritated cat prowls at the left. A woman, wearing a skirt, has a handful of tensely flared fingers. Everyone’s eyes are wide open in fright, wonder, surprise, or perhaps all three. The woman’s gaze leads us to the primary central action—a man in a top hat coaxing a cat into his grasp. A large bird perched on the man’s hat and child suspended from a tree seem to act as indicators of just how high the cat has climbed and just how frightening this whole event is. As related by Traylor, the scene is also inherently humorous—the unrealistic scale of the animals in relationship to the jaunty, jumping, and swinging human figures provides levity and a sense of joy.http://nodes.emuseum.com/BU1BGBAG/apis/emuseum/network/v1/vocabularies/termMaster1545028http://nodes.emuseum.com/BU1BGBAG/apis/emuseum/network/v1/vocabularies/termMaster1545185http://nodes.emuseum.com/BU1BGBAG/apis/emuseum/network/v1/vocabularies/termMaster1545186http://nodes.emuseum.com/BU1BGBAG/apis/emuseum/network/v1/vocabularies/termMaster1545028http://nodes.emuseum.com/BU1BGBAG/apis/emuseum/network/v1/vocabularies/termMaster1545185http://nodes.emuseum.com/BU1BGBAG/apis/emuseum/network/v1/vocabularies/termMaster1545186http://nodes.emuseum.com/BU1BGBAG/apis/emuseum/network/v1/vocabularies/termMaster1545028http://nodes.emuseum.com/BU1BGBAG/apis/emuseum/network/v1/vocabularies/termMaster1545185http://nodes.emuseum.com/BU1BGBAG/apis/emuseum/network/v1/vocabularies/termMaster154518619391942 1991 34 1 How do we interpret the central visual axis in twenty similar works by Bill Traylor, around which animals and figures chase one another when not falling into empty space? Is this structure the public fountain from the everyday landscape of the artist, or a life-threatening statement that conjures up, all at once, the darkness of crucifixion (crosses), the brutality of lynchings (gallows), and the miseries of slavery (cotton presses)? Beyond his pictures, Traylor left few records of his own thoughts. As explored in the 2013 American Folk Art Museum exhibition Traylor in Motion: Wonders from New York Collections, each work is more than an isolated incident—on the contrary, they respond to each other, and form the sequences of a personal cinema. Instead of being merely a basic depiction, the subject becomes a visual statement structuring Traylor’s mind, bringing together hidden symbols from Kongo Vodou, Hoodoo, Southern Baptist, Freemasonry, and blues sources, as well as layers of references: slavery, uncensored violence in the Jim Crow era, and turbulence within the black enclave known as “Dark Town” in Montgomery.
Valérie Rousseau, “Untitled (Figures and Construction with Blue Border),” exhibition label for Self-Taught Genius: Treasures from the American Folk Art Museum. Stacy C. Hollander and Valérie Rousseau, curators. New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2014.
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information.
To help improve this record, please email photoservices@folkartmuseum.orgHow do we interpret the central visual axis in twenty similar works by Bill Traylor, around which animals and figures chase one another when not falling into empty space? Is this structure the public fountain from the everyday landscape of the artist, or a life-threatening statement that conjures up, all at once, the darkness of crucifixion (crosses), the brutality of lynchings (gallows), and the miseries of slavery (cotton presses)? Beyond his pictures, Traylor left few records of his own thoughts. As explored in the 2013 American Folk Art Museum exhibition Traylor in Motion: Wonders from New York Collections, each work is more than an isolated incident—on the contrary, they respond to each other, and form the sequences of a personal cinema. Instead of being merely a basic depiction, the subject becomes a visual statement structuring Traylor’s mind, bringing together hidden symbols from Kongo Vodou, Hoodoo, Southern Baptist, Freemasonry, and blues sources, as well as layers of references: slavery, uncensored violence in the Jim Crow era, and turbulence within the black enclave known as “Dark Town” in Montgomery.
Valérie Rousseau, “Untitled (Figures and Construction with Blue Border),” exhibition label for Self-Taught Genius: Treasures from the American Folk Art Museum. Stacy C. Hollander and Valérie Rousseau, curators. New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2014. PAINTING
During a three-year period of astounding creativity, Bill Traylor produced around 1,500 powerful works that drew upon a well of life experiences compressed into the most minimal of representations. Traylor was born into slavery and spent the majority of his life on the George Traylor Plantation in Benton, Alabama, where he remained as a freed farmworker after emancipation. At the age of eighty-four he moved to Montgomery and started creating drawings with found materials such as discarded pencil stubs, poster paint, and laundry shirt boards. His masterful works can be classed into two categories: spare geometric or figural compositions, and narrative works, such as this one, that Traylor called "exciting events." Reminiscent of stacked markers on African American gravesites, each stratum of these pictographic renderings reacts to the activity above and below.
The catalyzing force in this drawing is the large dog that has seemingly chased a cat to the top of a tree. The hysteria this has provoked is made palpable by the agitation seen in figures’ poses and expressions, the child dangling precariously from a limb, and the dramatic scale, the scene capped at the top by an imposingly large bird.
Stacy C. Hollander, "Untitled (Figures and Construction with Blue Border)," exhibition label for Jubilation|Rumination: Life, Real and Imagined. Stacy C. Hollander, curator. New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2012.Bill Traylor was a master of composition. He used simple forms and shapes in often marvelously complex figurations. Traylor called his narrative works “exciting events,” and they reveal the artist as a gifted storyteller. In them, many characters come together, often housed in a skeletal construction that doesn’t quite resemble a building. Figures and Construction with Blue Border is a strong example of one such work. Traylor demonstrated his consummate skill and confidence with his strong, unwavering pencil line, the sharply delineated forms, and the overall interaction of negative and positive space. By following the action from bottom to top and as directed by the outstretched, pointing fingers of several characters on the picture plane, the story becomes apparent—a dog has chased a cat to the heights of a tree or a house rooftop.
The familiar Traylor rendering of a dog appears here, but now the animal displays his teeth in a growl. The dog is artistically and narratively responsible for supporting all the action above it. On an odd structure that resembles a boat, a porch, or a tree, four people stand or leap about animatedly. An irritated cat prowls at the left. A woman, wearing a skirt, has a handful of tensely flared fingers. Everyone’s eyes are wide open in fright, wonder, surprise, or perhaps all three. The woman’s gaze leads us to the primary central action—a man in a top hat coaxing a cat into his grasp. A large bird perched on the man’s hat and child suspended from a tree seem to act as indicators of just how high the cat has climbed and just how frightening this whole event is. As related by Traylor, the scene is also inherently humorous—the unrealistic scale of the animals in relationship to the jaunty, jumping, and swinging human figures provides levity and a sense of joy.