William Tolliver’s Meteoric leap to the top

By Arden Allen Dufilho, Entertainment Editor

Friday, June 13, 1986

William Tolliver was born in Vicksburg, Miss., in 1951. He was raised by a mother and grandmother who worked in the cotton fields. Had he not discovered his talent for drawing, he might be there today.

At first, William Tolliver only wanted to “outdraw” his brother. He was only seven or eight and he simply wanted to draw better than his [older] brother, one of 13 siblings.

So he practiced. He would copy drawings from comic books or the bible, anything he could find. Soon, he was better than his brother, and he was hooked. His brother’s interest waned, but Tolliver’s grew.

“Just a little taste of art got me started,” says the self-deprecating artist. “Whenever I found art books, I would read and this would make me want to paint.” Back then, it was no more than a hobby to him.

Today, Tolliver is a hot property in the art world. He has had a showing in Washington, D.C. with another one scheduled there, as well as shows coming up in Chicago, Kansas City and Florida. He was featured in the February/March issue of Art Gallery International magazine and collectors from around the country jet in just to see and buy his work.

Not quite two years ago, this shy man first brought his work to Lafayette’s Live Oak Gallery, run by Bob Crutchfield.

Crutchfield recalls the day when Tolliver walked into the gallery with one of his paintings clutched tightly against his chest as if to avoid showing it as long as possible.

“He set it on the floor and backed up to see what we (Crutchfield and gallery director Michael Conway) thought,” said Crutchfield. “Neither of us said anything, not because of anything other than complete awe, and he reached over to pick it up and started to leave saying, ‘I knew you wouldn’t like it.’ And both of us screamed in unison, ‘Leave it alone!’ That same painting sold and the owners have been offered something like 15 times what they paid for it.”

That’s a long way to come in two years for anyone. But for a high school dropout who left home at 14 and traveled around the U.s. for more than 10 years working as a carpenter or maintenance man, it’s astounding.

Though never encouraged by his family to pursue this artistic learning, Tolliver says his family never discouraged him either.

“My father never thought it would go anywhere, it was a waste of time,” Tolliver said, “But he never discouraged it. He would always brag about how good his son could draw.”

Friends would admire his work and tell him, perhaps prophetically, that one day his talent would make him rich.

“I was never around anybody who put me down,” said Tolliver. But even though friends and family admired his work, it didn’t mean much to him because he knew his admirers had no artistic background and were not making valid, critical judgments.

“People thought I was good, but I was never sure. The people who said I was good didn’t know anything about art,” laughed Tolliver. “I mean , what do they know? You need a lot of experience to know.”

The young artist learned on his own. The Mississippi schools he attended didn’t even have art teachers, so he would practice by himself. First he used oil pastels and inexpensive watercolor sets he bought at the dime stores with money he earned mowing lawns. Then Tolliver taught himself about paints and how to mix and blend them by using paint-by-number sets.

“I used the sets to learn how to mix the colors,” Tolliver said, “Actually there is no better teacher to show you how to mix and blend colors because everything is diagrammed, every little spot, every color. Once I did one or two of those, I got the principles.”

Tolliver’s artwork took a back seat to basic living after he dropped out of school and went to Los Angeles. He lied about his age to join the Job Corps where he learned carpentry. From Los Angeles he moved to Milwaukee and eventually back to Mississippi. He’d do construction work by day and paint at night.

In 1977, he married and as his family grew so did the demands on his income.

It was in 1981, that Tolliver decided to move his wife and three children to take advantage of Lafayette’s oil boom. At first, carpentry jobs were easy to come by, but by 1983, the boom went bust and Tolliver ended up in the unemployment lines.

Desperation drove the insecure artist to try to sell his paintings. At first Tolliver tried to emulate styles he believed would sell, standard landscapes and swamp scenes. The art world wasn’t impressed. But the first time Crutchfield saw Tolliver’s own style, well the rest is history.

“The more I do what I want, the better people seem to like it,” muses Tolliver. “I never would have thought that other people could see what I saw in paintings.”

Crutchfield believes Tolliver is the most versatile artist he has ever worked with.

“I’ve never known anyone as versatile as William. He can do any medium, and he’s a master at colors,” Crutchfield said. “He’s a master whether it’s an impressionistic landscape or a figurative study or an abstract. All of the paintings are pleasant, I like to call them, remembrances from where he grew up. They’re happy things, nostalgic. He has a complete mastery of color harmony and design. And I would say he’s probably the most talented artist we’ve ever dealt with. His sales will show that I’m not wrong.”

Tolliver devotes nearly 18 hours a day to painting beginning around noon and working until 4 or 5 in the morning.

“Not I’m not actually sitting in front of the canvas to paint the whole time because you to get your canvas ready, you have to run around and buy supplies,” explained the artist. “You also have to take time to read about different techniques. By the time I get everything together it’s usually around 4 p.m. and I work to 4 or 5 in the morning. I’ve gotten to the point where I have to be absolutely exhausted before I can fall asleep.”

Tolliver works at this pace for as much as three months, then he says he goes off somewhere to sleep for a couple of days. Or he goes home to Vicksburg.

“I can totally relax in Vicksburg; I feel safe and secure. It’s home,” Tolliver. “But I’m ready to come back after a couple of days.”

How has this sudden fame changed Tolliver?

“Now if I see something that triggers my imagination I paint it whereas then (before his sudden popularity) I wouldn’t do that,” he said.

But fame still comes hard to Tolliver, it’s still hard for him to believe that he can actually make a living doing what he loves, and a good living at that. He still has trouble believing that anyone would buy a painting from someone with no formal art training. Why, he asks, himself, would anyone want it?

“I always thought I had talent, I didn’t know for sure,” Tolliver said. “But I was afraid to find out whether I did or didn’t. I really didn’t want anybody to tell me ‘You really don’t have any talent’ after 25 years of hoping that maybe I do. Now that I’ve found out that I do, I don’t know how to take it. It’s surprising in a way on one side of your brain.”

With a slight smile he added, “On the other side, you knew it all the time.”