Between Worlds - by Leslie Umberger (Hardcover)
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<p/><br></br><p><b> About the Book </b></p></br></br>"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 The author draws on a wealth of historical documents--including federal and state census records, birth and death certificates, slave schedules, and interviews with family members-- to clarify the record of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"--<p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br><p><b>A major new look at the work of one of America's foremost self-taught artists</b> <p/>Bill Traylor (ca. 1853-1949) came to art-making on his own and found his creative voice without guidance; today he is remembered as a renowned American artist. Traylor was born into slavery on an Alabama plantation, and his experiences spanned multiple worlds--black and white, rural and urban, old and new--as well as the crucibles that indelibly shaped America--the Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the Great Migration. <i>Between Worlds </i>presents an unparalleled look at the work of this enigmatic and dazzling artist, who blended common imagery with arcane symbolism, narration with abstraction, and personal vision with the beliefs and folkways of his time. <p/>Traylor was about twelve when the Civil War ended. After six more decades of farm labor, he moved, aging and alone, into segregated Montgomery. In the last years of his life, he drew and painted works depicting plantation memories and the rising world of African American culture. Upon his death he left behind over a thousand pieces of art. <i>Between Worlds </i>convenes 205 of his most powerful creations, including a number that have been previously unpublished. This beautiful and carefully researched book assesses Traylor's biography and stylistic development, and for the first time interprets his scenes as ongoing narratives, conveying enduring, interrelated themes. <p/><i>Between Worlds</i> reveals one man's visual record of African American life as a window into the overarching story of his nation. <p/>Published in association with the Smithsonian American Art Museum</p><p/><br></br><p><b> Review Quotes </b></p></br></br><br><i>Between Worlds</i> pairs a painstakingly detailed biography with an expansive, object-orientated analysis, the former serving as foundation for the latter.<b>---Annie Monahan, <i>Burlington Magazine</i></b><br><br><i>Between Worlds: The Art of Bill Traylor </i>is a genuinely unfathomable account. . . . Umberger takes great care in flushing out the worlds between that Traylor's depictions historically dangled. . . . With over 200 drawings reproduced as examples of various techniques or themes, there is much information to digest. Umberger's unsurpassed skill as a historian and writer, cuts easily through it all revealing depth and dimension. For the reader not intimidated by the bulk of this volume, approaching six pounds, there is much reward and there are too many insights to list. Even 70 years after his death, his life experience remains critically important to our contemporary settings.<b>---Cindy Helms, <i>New York Journal of Books</i></b><br><br><i>Between Worlds: The Art of Bill Traylor</i> discusses and illustrates 205 of Traylor's works, images that are powerfully backdropped by the times he lived in.<b>---Shannon Heupel, <i>Montgomery Advertiser</i></b><br><br>[A] major monograph.<b>---Karen Wilkin, <i>Wall Street Journal</i></b><br><br>[A] major undertaking. . . . [The book] includes chapters on the world in which [Traylor] lived, carefully documented by biographical details from surviving records, and discusses the emergence of his talent during an active period in late life while recounting how his preserved work captured the attention of the art world decades after his death.<b>---Karla Klein Albertson, <i>Antiques and the Arts</i></b><br><br>[Leslie Umberger's] curated volume of Traylor's life and work is a narrative and visual accomplishment; a beautifully-presented book that captures the marvel and struggle of Traylor's life, and the uniqueness of his work.<b>---Nick Ripatrazone, <i>Angelus News</i></b><br><br>A major contribution [and] essential reading for anyone who wants to understand American art in the twentieth century. . . . Umberger's scrupulously researched book fill[s] in many gaps while overturning long-held assumptions, misinformation and misguided theories about the artist and his work. . . . Umberger writes at length about the historical and cultural circumstances within which Traylor lived and made his art. She fills in a richly detailed background, presents the most complete picture of his life to date, and casts revealing new light on his art. Positioning his work firmly within a cultural context, she rejects any notion of him as an outsider.<b>---Tom Patterson, <i>Raw Vision</i></b><br><br>A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year<br><br>Leslie Umberger's monumental catalogue, <i>Between Worlds: The Art of Bill Traylor, </i>which accompanied her 2018 exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, is a stunning, intensely researched, and moving tribute to a unique figure in the history of American art . . . . The catalogue, which includes more than two hundred gorgeous illustrations of artworks from public and private collections, along with ample reproductions of archival material and historical photographs, make it not only the most comprehensive resource for Traylor's work, but also an excellent one for those interested in the history of the American South. A bold and brilliant text, contained inside a beautifully produced object, <i>Between Worlds </i>sets the standard for the type of critical scholarship that can be done on an artist once discounted as marginal or an outsider.<b>---Aleesa Pitchamarn Alexander, <i>Panorama: Journal of the Association of Historians of American Art</i></b><br><br>One of the New York Times' Best Art Books of 2018<br><br>The detective work in <i>Between Worlds</i> is so engrossing that one may be forgiven for forgetting that the book is also an exhibition catalogue. It accompanies an extensive retrospective, now at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC, of Bill Traylor's paintings and drawings. Traylor, who died in 1949, is considered one of the most important 'folk' or 'self-taught' American artists. But this project demonstrates in magisterial manner how his work exceeds these limiting categories. . . . Umberger is refreshingly blunt about the art world's racial politics, the persistence and consequences of gatekeeping, and the way categories like 'folk art' marginalize the makers of those pieces. She offers deep research into the artist's like and work as a welcome remedy.<b>---Siddhartha Mitter, <i>Bookforum</i></b><br><br>The most thrilling book of the year.<b>---Roberta Smith, <i>New York Times</i></b><br><br>This meticulously researched catalogue . . . serves as a corrective to the persistent stereotyping of black art as primitive. . . . Now, with the Smithsonian exhibition and accompanying catalogue, Bill Traylor's testimony is available to the wider world.<b>---Fran Bigman, <i>Times Literary Supplement</i></b><br><br>Traylor's images . . . now count among the greatest works of 20th-century American art, and thanks to a magnificent catalogue, the artist is obscure no more.<b>---Roberta Smith, <i>New York Times</i></b><br><br>[A] groundbreaking monograph in which Umberger thoroughly reassesses the known facts of Traylor's life and family, his creative trajectory, and the art world's discovery of him and positions him within the broader context of American art.-- "ARTFIX daily"<br><br>[A] remarkable catalogue, which exhaustively lays out what can be known of Traylor's life, in its historical context, and of the references in his art.<b>---Peter Schjeldahl, <i>New Yorker</i></b><br><br>[Leslie] Umberger emerges as the finest interpreter of Traylor's life and career, proving that she is an American curator and art historian of the first order. . . . At long last, Bill Traylor's artwork takes center stage to speak to viewers of the pasts of the present. . . . <i>Between Worlds </i>is a testament to the enduring, inclusive genius of Bill Traylor, a man who came from slavery to make a world all his own. Traylor's paintings remind us of the indomitable creative spirit, enduring beyond this nation's sins.<b>---Andrew M. Davenport, <i>Los Angeles Review of Books</i></b><br><br>Honorable Mention for the George Wittenborn Memorial Book Award, Art Libraries Society of North America<br><br>Leslie Umberger's compelling text, the result of extensive research, details the social and political context to Traylor's life and art, and pieces together as much as possible of his family history.-- "Art Quarterly"<br><br>Umberger does justice to [Bill Traylor's] work and his life story . . . . [a] wonderful book.-- "Rethinking History"<br><p/><br></br><p><b> About the Author </b></p></br></br><b>Leslie Umberger</b> is curator of folk and self-taught art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. <b>Stephanie Stebich</b> is the Margaret and Terry Stent Director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. <b>Kerry James Marshall</b> is an internationally renowned artist and 1997 MacArthur Fellow.
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