Kitchen Scene, Yellow House
Born into enslavement, Traylor—one of the most distinctive Black artists of the twentieth century—experienced dramatic historical change firsthand, including emancipation, Reconstruction, Jim Crow segregation, and the Great Migration. At the age of eighty-six, Traylor began drawing urban life around him in Montgomery, Alabama. Revealing 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 drawings and paintings on pieces of found cardboard, including this two-tiered domestic scene featuring both interior and exterior views.
Artwork Details
- Title: Kitchen Scene, Yellow House
- Artist: Bill Traylor (American, Benton, Alabama ca. 1853–1949 Montgomery, Alabama)
- Date: ca. 1939–42
- Culture: American
- Medium: Graphite and colored pencil on cardboard
- Dimensions: 22 x 14 in. (55.9 x 35.6 cm)
- Credit Line: Purchase, Anonymous Gift, 1992
- Object Number: 1992.48
- Curatorial Department: The American Wing
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Bill Traylor
ca. 1939–42
Bill Traylor
ca. 1939–40
Bill Traylor
ca. 1939–42
Bill Traylor
ca. 1939–42
Bill Traylor
ca. 1939–42
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