Bill Traylor (1853-1949) - Montgomery, AL
Posted by: 
Markerman62
N 32° 22.712 W 086° 18.372
16S E 565263 N 3582606
Located on North Lawrence Street and Monroe Street, Montgomery
Waymark Code: WM16MZ4
Location: Alabama, United States
Date Posted: 08/30/2022
Views: 1
Bill Traylor was born into an enslaved family on a Dallas County plantation. Around age ten, Traylor and his family were relocated to another plantation in neighboring Lowndes County, where they remained as laborers after Emancipation. Between 1939 and 1942, after many decades of farm labor throughout the region, Traylor took up the practice of art, creating pictures that testified to the difficulties of navigating the black and white worlds of the segregated South. Using found and donated materials, including paperboard, pencils, and paint, Traylor spent his days creating his art here, at the intersection of Monroe and North Lawrence streets, in the heart of Montgomery's African American business district. In a short time, Traylor created more than one thousand pieces of drawn and painted artwork, now critically acclaimed and the largest such body of work made by an artist born into slavery. Regarded as one of America's most important artists, Traylor's works are now held in museums around the world. Bill Traylor died on October 23, 1949, and is buried in the cemetery at Mount Mariah AME Zion Church. The epitaph on his new headstone, installed in 2018, reads "THROUGH HIS ART HE LIVES ON."
Marker Name: Bill Traylor (1853-1949)
Marker Type: Urban
Addtional Information::
Alabama Historical Association
Date Dedicated / Placed: 2019
Marker Number: Not listed
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