Mose Tolliver

(ca. 1920-2006) Montgomery, AL

Mose Tolliver began painting after an industrial accident left him handicapped in the mid 1960s. After his work was featured in two important exhibitions in the early 1980s, Transmitters: The Isolate Artist in America (Philadelphia College of Art, 1981), and the Black Folk Art in America: 1930-1980 show at the Corcoran in 1982, interest in, and demand for, his paintings increased significantly. He has since become one of the most enduring and widely collected self-taught artists of his generation. He painted actively until 2003.

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WORKS BY TOLLIVER FAMILY MEMBERS

It should not be surprising that Mose Tolliver, like many other “folk” artists, passed his love for painting onto his family, and encouraged many of them to make art. Call it the “School of Mose”! I think the family pieces are an important part of the story. I will have much more to say about this. Stay tuned . . .