Mose Tolliver

Watermelon

1990s

In the late 1960s, Mose Tolliver’s career as a landscaper ended when a heavy crate of marble crushed his ankle. At the encouragement of his former employer, Tolliver began painting images with house paint directly onto discarded surfaces like furniture and wooden boards. He is now remembered as one of America’s most highly regarded self-taught artists of the late 20th century.

He was born in 1924 into a sharecropping family that lived near Montgomery, Alabama. After he was injured while working for the McLendon Furniture Company, Tolliver taught himself to paint birds, flowers and trees. He later expanded into painting images of people, animals, mythical creatures and religious symbols.

While sitting in his bedroom that doubled as a studio, Tolliver frequently laid his chosen material across his knees while he painted. His canvases consisted of broken furniture pieces, Masonite, old table tops and anything else Tolliver could get his hands on. He initially preferred to use oil-based paint, referring to it as “pure paint,” before moving on to water-based latex house paint.

With his limited materials, Tolliver often only had a few colors from which to choose. Despite these limitations, Tolliver achieved a harmony in his art that complemented his subjects and backgrounds. 

Tolliver’s work was recognized by Mitchell Kahan, a former curator at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts. At Kahan’s recommendation, the museum held Tolliver’s first solo exhibition in 1981. A man of humble modesty and extreme dedication, Tolliver dismissed any notions of grandeur and once stated to the museum’s advertising team, “I’m not interested in art. I just want to paint my pictures.” 

His work was part of the major 1982 exhibition Black Folk Art in America 1930–1980 at the Corcoran Gallery. It is now in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Tolliver painted consistently until a severe stroke in 2005. He died on October 30, 2006.

On 1stDibs, find a collection of Mose Tolliver’s paintings.