Blue Construction, Orange Figures

ca. 1939–42

Not on view

Born into enslavement in rural Alabama, Traylor—one of the most distinctive Black artists of the twentieth century—experienced dramatic historical change in the United States firsthand, including emancipation, Reconstruction, Jim Crow segregation, and the Great Migration. About 1939, at the age of eighty-six, Traylor began drawing urban life around him in Montgomery, Alabama, and revisiting events from his own past. Working with a strong sense of design and storytelling, his renderings are striking in their disregard for spatial depth and proportion. Traylor would create more than one thousand pencil drawings and gouache paintings on pieces of found cardboard, including this engaging composition with a dog, bird, and two human figures, one teetering from a tall central construction.

Artwork Details

Object Information

Overview

Provenance

Title: Blue Construction, Orange Figures
Artist: Bill Traylor (American, Benton, Alabama ca. 1853–1949 Montgomery, Alabama)
Date: ca. 1939–42
Geography: Made in Montogmery, Alabama, United States
Culture: American
Medium: Gouache and graphite on cardboard
Dimensions: 13 1/4 x 7 1/4 in. (33.7 x 18.4 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of Charles E. and Eugenia C. Shannon, 2015
Object Number: 2015.756
Curatorial Department: The American Wing

More Artwork

By Bill Traylor

In the same medium

From the same time and place

Two Men Walking, Bill Traylor American, Tempera and graphite on paper, American — Two Men Walking
Bill Traylor
ca. 1939–43

Quilt, Circles pattern, Unidentified maker, Alabama, Cotton, pieced and quilted, American — Quilt, Circles pattern
Unidentified
1960s–1970s

Bottle, Glass, and Pipe (Violette de Parme), Georges Braque French, Cut-and-pasted newspaper, painted paper and wallpaper, charcoal, graphite, and gouache on paperboard — Bottle, Glass, and Pipe (Violette de Parme)
Georges Braque
Paris, early 1914

Self-Portrait, Bill Traylor American, Gouache and pencil on cardboard, American — Self-Portrait
Bill Traylor
ca. 1939–40

Riddle ma riddle as I suppose : riddles from the Sea Islands, South Carolina, Amos Kennedy American — Riddle ma riddle as I suppose : riddles from the Sea Islands, South Carolina
Author Amos Kennedy
2002

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