UNTITLED (BROWN CONSTRUCTION WITH FIGURES AND DOG)

Details

BILL TRAYLOR (CIRCA 1853-1949)
UNTITLED (BROWN CONSTRUCTION WITH FIGURES AND DOG)
tempera and graphite on card
13 ¼ x 7 ¼ in.
Painted circa 1939-1942.

Provenance

Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York
Ricco/Maresca Gallery, New York
William Louis-Dreyfus, Mount Kisco, New York, 1993
Gifted from the above to The William Louis-Dreyfus Foundation, Mount Kisco, 2013

Literature

Exhibition catalogue, Bill Traylor: An American Prodigy (New York, 1997), no. 50.
Frank Maresca and Roger Ricco, Bill Traylor: Observing Life (New York, 1997), pl. 50.

Exhibited

New York, Ricco/Maresca Gallery, Bill Traylor: An American Prodigy, 20 November 24-December 1997.

Conditions of sale

Brought to you by

Cara Zimmerman Head of Americana and Outsider Art

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Lot Essay

After a lifetime on a plantation, former slave Bill Traylor (1854-1949) moved to Montgomery, Alabama. From a doorstep on Monroe Street he rendered starkly modernist animals, architectural elements, dancing, drinking and fighting figures, and other images evoking his current and previous experiences. Untitled (Brown Construction with Figures and Dog) is one of Traylor's 'exciting events'. The image is animated and alive, with figures hanging and balancing precariously with energetically pointed fingers while a barking dog center the scene, wagging his tail.

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