Between worlds : the art of Bill Traylor / Leslie Umberger ; with an introduction by Kerry James Marshall.
Umberger, Leslie, author.; Marshall, Kerry James, 1955- writer of introduction.; Smithsonian American Art Museum, organizer, host institution.
2018
NC139.T69 A4 2018 (Mapit)
Available at General Collection

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Title Between worlds : the art of Bill Traylor / Leslie Umberger ; with an introduction by Kerry James Marshall.
Author Umberger, Leslie, author.
ISBN 9780691182674 (hardcover)
0691182671 (hardcover)
Published Washington, DC : Smithsonian American Art Museum ; Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2018]
Language English
Description 444 pages : illustrations ; 30 cm
Call Number NC139.T69 A4 2018
Dewey Decimal Classification 709.04/09
Summary "Bill Traylor (ca. 1853-1949) is regarded today as one of the most important American artists of the twentieth century. A black man born into slavery in Alabama, he was an eyewitness to history--the Civil War, Emancipation, Reconstruction, Jim Crow segregation, the Great Migration, and the steady rise of African American urban culture in the South. Traylor would not live to see the civil rights movement, but he was among those who laid its foundation. Starting around 1939, Traylor--by then in his late eighties and living on the streets of Montgomery--took up pencil and paintbrush to attest to his existence and point of view. In keeping with this radical step, the paintings and drawings he made are visually striking and politically assertive; they include simple yet powerful distillations of tales and memories as well as spare, vibrantly colored abstractions. When Traylor died, he left behind more than one thousand works of art. In Between Worlds: The Art of Bill Traylor, Leslie Umberger considers more than two hundred artworks to provide the most comprehensive and in-depth study of the artist to date; she examines his life, art, and powerful drive to bear witness through the only means he had, pictures. The author draws on a wealth of historical documents--including federal and state census records, birth and death certificates, slave schedules, and interviews with family members-- to clarify the record of Traylor's personal history and family life. The story of his art opens in the late 1930s, when Traylor first received attention for his pencil drawings on found board, and concludes with the posthumous success of his oeuvre"-- Provided by publisher.
Note "Published in conjunction with the exhibition of the same name, on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC, September 28, 2018-March 17, 2019"--Page after title page.
Bibliography, etc. Note Includes bibliographical references and index.
Added Author Marshall, Kerry James, 1955- writer of introduction.
Added Corporate Author Smithsonian American Art Museum, organizer, host institution.
Record Appears in On-Campus Resources > Books
All Resources
Lenders to the exhibition
Director's foreword
Preface
Notes to the reader
The beatitudes of Bill Traylor / Kerry James Marshall
Prologue
The life of Bill Traylor
Nineteenth-century Alabama and the world of Bill Traylor's parents
Bill Traylor's adult life and family, 1880-1949
The art of Bill Traylor
Early work, ca.1939-1940: plates 4-70
Florescence, ca.1940-1942: plates 71-197
Art in the final years, 1942-1949
Afterlife: the posthumous success of Bill Traylor's art: plates 198-204
Timeline and family trees
List of plates
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Image credits
Index.

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