Untitled (Mule)

Bill Traylor, Untitled (Mule), December 1939, opaque watercolor and pencil on paperboard, sheet and image: 15 × 14 in. (38.1 × 35.6 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Margaret Z. Robson Collection, Gift of John E. and Douglas O. Robson, 2016.38.90, © 1994, Bill Traylor Family Trust

Artwork Details

Title: Untitled (Mule)
Artist: Bill Traylor
Date: December 1939
Location: Not on view
Dimensions: sheet and image: 15 × 14 in. (38.1 × 35.6 cm)
Copyright: © 1994, Bill Traylor Family Trust
Credit Line: The Margaret Z. Robson Collection, Gift of John E. and Douglas O. Robson
Mediums: watercolor
pencil
Mediums Description: opaque watercolor and pencil on paperboard
Classifications: Drawing
Subjects: Animal — mule
Object Number: 2016.38.90
Linked Open Data: https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/2016.38.90

Artwork Description

Bill Traylor began drawing his memories sometime around 1939, when he was about eighty-six. After decades of farm labor, the aged artist spent his days in the city, observing and drawing in the Black business district of Montgomery. He took stock of the world around him, first in pencil, later in water-based paint, learning to organize his pictures as visual texts—telling stories and keeping a record of all he had experienced.
(We Are Made of Stories: Self-Taught Artists in the Robson Family Collection, 2022)