Bill Traylor

This selection of Bill Traylor’s drawings coincides with a major retrospective of his work at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., and re-affirms (as if that were needed), his stature as one of America’s greatest self-taught artist—or artist, period. Traylor (1854–1949) was born into slavery and didn’t start to draw until he was 85, when he began to render fanciful images of people and animals on pieces of discarded cardboard. Based on direct observation, or on Traylor’s recollection of same, these scenes portrayed life in the Deep South in a visual language that rivaled anything being done in Modern Art at the time.