Fayetteville Observer-Times

Sunday, September 18, 1994

Artwork with a Quiet Strength

By Melissa Clement

As a youngster, William Tolliver Painted by numbers. Now he paints by memory and emotion.

A long way now from paint-by-numbers, the 43-year-old artist produces figure studies, portraits, genre, landscape and semi-abstracts in a sophisticated blends of realism, abstraction, impressionism, and cubism similar to Picasso.

Today the Fayetteville Museum of Art opens an exhibit of his paintings and prints. It is free and open to the public.

Tolliver started with a paint-by-numbers kit. Once he began blending colors on the canvas, a light came on, he said. He had learned the system of color. By the age of 10 he could create academically correct paintings.

Tolliver is self-taught and one of few artist in the country who makes a living strictly from his art. He sells through his own gallery in Atlanta and other galleries and museums throughout the country.

He says his influence was not directly from Picasso. Picasso’s style was developed through his study of African art. Tolliver spent time as a youth in African museums and developed an African style.

“I knew my lines were like Picasso’s, but it wasn’t until later I knew why,” he said.

Different mediums

He works in all mediums, including pastels, watercolor and oil. Some of his paintings have been made into prints that are framed and on view. The museum is selling the unframed limited edition prints for $155 and up. Paintings are also on sale with prices ranging from $4,600 to $125,000.00

Tolliver’s early interest in art came through his mother who held drawing contests between herself and her two sons. His interest in art grew stronger through the years.

Born in Vicksburg, Miss., he left at the age 14 for Los Angeles where he entered the job Corps and learned carpentry. One of his counselors gave him encouragement for his art and when he moved to Milwaukee, then Chicago, he met more artists. Returning to Vicksburg, he worked as a carpenter and house painter. In 1977, he married and in 1980 moved his family to Lafayette, La., to work as a house painter. After a year he was left jobless.

Tolliver, described as a shy man with little self-confidence, waited until his unemployment benefits ran out. Then he sent his wife, Debrah, to take two paintings to hang in a artist’s cooperative.

“I was supposed to take the art to the Lafayette Art Association to see if I could purchase wall space by the foot to show his work,” said Mrs. Tolliver by phone. “I went to the University of Southwest Louisiana Museum Art Gallery by mistake. The curator, Frances Love, said I was at the wrong place, but how much were the paintings? She liked the paintings and bought one.”

Later the art curator and a gallery owner asked Tolliver to come in and bring his work. “They laid the paintings on the floor and just looked at them. My husband thought they didn’t like them and was going to pick them up when they both followed. They bought them for $250.00. He was thrilled. For about a year and a half he painted houses during the daytime and painted art at night until he got to the place he could paint full time,” she said.

Over the years Tolliver says he has read more than 4,000 books mostly on art and studied the masters through books and visits to museums. For the last 10 years he has been painting full time.

Many of his works deal with subjects he recalls during his childhood in Mississippi. Painting shows people working in cotton fields, walking to and from church, picking up pecans and playing checkers on the back porch. All of his characters are treated with dignity and shown as people with pride strength and soul.

He believes that art teaches and documents history and that black art is psychologically positive, especially for children.

“Looking at art works a part of the brain that you don’t ordinarily work,” he said.

Demands response

Art demands a response, he says, whether good or bad, and that is the aim of artists.

The museum is showing several of Tolliver’s works from the collection of Dr. James Pilgrim, Jr. and his wife Juanita. He is a dentist and colonel in the Army; Mrs. Pilgrim is the assistant county manager.

“We first met the Tolliver’s at the first black arts festival in Atlanta in 1988,” said Mrs. Pilgrim. “He invited us to his home in Lafayette. He and his wife are such genuine people - good people and hard working. They are just good old Southern folk. He has a real feel for the community and such sensitivity.

“To me he is a genius. Every time I look at his work I see something new in it. It is so peaceful and always tell a story.”

A painting from the Pilgrim’s collection on view is “Grandma’s Stories.” It shows Tolliver’s great-grandmother telling stories to her surrounding grandchildren.

The story about the painting reads “Late in the evenings or at night when Grandma’s work was done, she would sit by the fireplace in her old rickety rocking chair that creaked as she rocked. All the children would gather around her and beg her to tell them a story. Tell us a story Grandma! Please, Please tell us a story. Many times Grandma didn’t feel up to telling them stories. If they begged hard enough, she’d finally give in. Before she started her stories, she always prepared popped corn that she grew in her own garden. They sat round while Grandma told them stories. Sometimes the stories she told them were so scary and spooky, the children would be shaking by the end of the story.”

“It’s the warmth,” Mrs. Pilgrim said of the painting. “The quality of the older woman with such powerful hands stretched out - extended to her family, as if she were embracing the children, imparting information. It’s just the closeness of the family.”

A poster has been made of “Grandma Stories” and is on sale for $20.00