Bill Traylor was a master of placement of object on ground or substrate or laundry shirt cardboard or whatever he found to paint on. Perfectly placed to articulate and accentuate the gesture.
“Bill Traylor: Drawings from the Collections of the High Museum of Art and the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts” at the American Folk Art Museum was the pinnacle of our New York jaunt. Apologies to Robert Irwin’s minimal effort at the Whitney and James Turrel’s maximal effort at the Guggenheim. Bill Traylor can knock you out with a drawing of a bird. Direct like punk rock but right on like a master, the 63 drawings and paintings in this show were all sensational. He does not miss a beat.
Painted from memories of his slave days or from observations of his free retirement years they are mostly “Untitled” but have been assigned names like “Man with Hatchet Chasing Pointing Man” or “Couple Arguing” or “Truncated Blue Man with Pipe.” They are all essentially flat but animated to leap off the page. I didn’t want to leave the show so I studied the books in the gift shop and then ordered one from Amazon.
2 Comments
Wow, the feet are the best part and they got cropped. That and the edges of that shirt cardboard…nice.
you should keep this post up for a bit and just rotate out the images. they are all great.