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Bill Traylor was born into slavery in Alabama around 1853. In 1939, in his mid-eighties and living rough in Montgomery, he picked up a pencil, and in roughly three years produced more than a thousand drawings on scavenged cardboard.

Bill Traylor

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He sat on the pavement of Monroe Street by day, drawing sharp-edged mules, dogs, dancing figures and memories of plantation life, and slept in the back room of a funeral home. In 1939 the young white artist Charles Shannon began supplying him with poster paint, brushes and paper, and later kept hundreds of the drawings safe. Traylor died in 1949, almost unknown. In 2018 the Smithsonian American Art Museum opened 'Between Worlds: The Art of Bill Traylor', a retrospective billed as the first ever for an artist born into slavery.

Türkçe oku
Bill Traylor 1853 dolaylarında Alabama'da köle olarak doğdu. 1939'da, seksenlerinin ortasındayken ve Montgomery sokaklarında yaşarken eline bir kalem aldı; üç yıl içinde bulduğu kartonların üzerine binden fazla resim çizdi.

Traylor gündüzleri Monroe Caddesi'nin kaldırımında oturup çiziyordu: keskin hatlı katırlar, köpekler, dans eden insanlar, plantasyon yıllarından sahneler. Geceleri bir cenaze evinin arka odasında yatıyordu. 1939'da genç ve beyaz bir ressam olan Charles Shannon ona afiş boyası, fırça ve kâğıt getirmeye başladı; yıllar sonra da yüzlerce çizimi saklayıp kaybolmaktan kurtardı. Traylor 1949'da neredeyse hiç tanınmadan öldü. 2018'de Smithsonian Amerikan Sanat Müzesi onun için “Between Worlds: The Art of Bill Traylor” adlı bir retrospektif açtı ve bunu, köle olarak doğmuş bir sanatçıya ayrılan ilk retrospektif diye tanıttı.

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Background reading: Bill Traylor
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