**First Time At Auction**

William Tolliver (American, 1951-2000). "Feeding the Chickens" lithograph, 1989. Edition 312/850. Hand-signed in pencil at lower right. Numbered at lower left. Also signed and dated in the plate. A powerful depiction of a woman sharecropper feeding chickens by self-taught African-American artist William Tolliver. With this composition, Tolliver captures the realities of sharecropping in the South yet aims to convey respect for the labor that sharecroppers provided. Tolliver grew up watching his family work as sharecroppers, and as the Zigler Art Museum has keenly noted, Tolliver "saw nobility in the labor that he grew up watching his family perform. This is the underlying intent of the vast majority of his portfolio: personal reality, cultural pride, and dignity in honest work." Size (image): 34.5" L x 23.375" W (87.6 cm x 59.4 cm) Size (sheet): 38" L x 26.4" W (96.5 cm x 67.1 cm)

About the artist: William Tolliver was an exceptional African-American artist of the 20th century. Tolliver was one of fourteen children born into a Vicksburg, Mississippi sharecropping family. Drawn to visual art at a young age, Tolliver taught himself to paint and draw, because there was no art class in his local school. By age eight, William was mowing lawns to earn money for art supplies. In addition, his mother, Ella Mae Tolliver, worked full time in the cotton fields to support her children, but still managed to foster their interest in art. She borrowed art books on European masters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Rubens, and Rembrandt from the local library and even organized drawing contests between William and his siblings. Furthermore, according to an interview with Galerie Royale in New Orleans, William learned to make academically correct paintings by completing paint-by-number kits at a very young age. "There is no better teacher," he declared. "Everything is diagrammed, every little spot, every color. Once I did one or two of those, I understood the principles." Perhaps these lessons derived from paint-by-numbers in conjunction with William's study of modern artists fueled his later Cubist-style works. At age 14, William dropped out of school to work with Job Corps in Los Angeles where he learned skills from a carpenter teacher, and by the 1980s, he was living in Lafayette, Louisiana with his wife Debrah who took it upon herself to show his paintings to Bob Crutchfield, owner of Live Oak Gallery. These were received very well, and all nine paintings sold in ten days, igniting his career as an artist!

William Tolliver's art has been exhibited at the Smithsonian, the Contemporary Arts Center of New Orleans, the New Orleans Museum of Art, and the rotunda of the US Senate Building in Washington, DC. In addition, he was commissioned to create a poster for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia. Tolliver's art is held in the permanent collections of elite museums such as the Corcoran Museum, the Hampton University Museum, New Orleans Museum of Art, McKissick Museum, and the Zigler Museum. In addition, his works have been featured in important publications including the International Review of African American Art and The Art Gallery International. (Sources: Zigler Art Museum and The International Review of African American Art)

Provenance: private Vicksburg, Mississippi, USA collection

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#184825

Hand-signed in pencil at lower right. Numbered at lower left. Also signed and dated in the plate. Crease marks and a few small tears to the margins that do not impact the image.