For more than twenty years, Mose Tolliver was one of the most influential painters in the field of Southern self-taught art. Tolliver was born in 1920 to Alabama sharecroppers. One of a dozen children, he had eleven children of his own and supported his family with odd jobs until a crate of marble crushed his legs while he was working in a furniture factory in the late 1960's. Crippled, depressed, and drinking, he picked up a paintbrush to pass the time. His days of hanging paintings in his yard and offering them to passersby for a few dollars each ended in 1982, when his work was featured in a landmark exhibition of Black American Folk Art at Washington, D.C.'s Corcoran Gallery. Suddenly he was recognized as one of the most significant folk painters in America, and collectors from far and wide were seeking out his work. Mose continued to paint until 2005 perched on the edge of his bed. Working with housepaint on plywood, he created a wide array of wonderfully straightforward images; his favorite subjects were self, family, nature, and erotica. Mr. Tolliver died on Monday, October 30, 2006, in a hospital in Montgomery of complications from pneumonia. This webpage was last updated with new works on February 4, 2011.
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