It was most likely in the early 1930’s that Bill Traylor, then in his early 80s, left Benton, Alabama, where he had spent his life farming and settled in Montgomery, about 40 miles away. His wife had died, and his children had left mostly for cities in the North. He spent the following years on Monroe Avenue; a part of downtown inhabited primarily by the Black community and slept in the back room of a funeral parlor. In the summer of 1939, a young painter, Charles Shannon, encountered Traylor sitting on a crate and drawing. He was fascinated by Traylor and the images he created. Some based on memories of his life on the farm, and many on the contemporary activities and life on the streets of the Monroe district.

Shannon continued to visit Traylor, bringing him art materials and encouraging his work. He acquired a portion of the prolific artist’s drawings, most drawn on the backs of used commercial candy boxes or other discarded cardboard. Shannon was drafted in the summer of 1942 and only saw Traylor once again briefly in early 1946. Shannon saved the drawings for 40 years and they were finally brought to wider attention in the seminal exhibition Black Folk Art in America in 1982. Soon Traylor’s work was recognized as an important example of the creativity and vitality of works created by Black artists, and now considered a critical part of the mid – to late 20th century canon in American art.

This exhibition contains a portion of the gift of works by Bill Traylor gifted to the MMFA in 1982 by Charles Shannon and his wife, Eugenia Shannon.