35 Facts About Prentiss Taylor

Prentiss Taylor was an American illustrator, lithographer, and painter.

Prentiss Taylor became a member of one of the most important printmaking societies in America at that time, the Society of American Graphic Artists.

Prentiss Taylor interacted and collaborated with many writers and musicians in his time in New York in the late 1920s and early 30s.

Prentiss Taylor's work is in the collection of numerous institutions such as: the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American Art; The Phillips Collection; Gibbes Museum of Art; Museum of New Mexico; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Whitney Museum of American Art Fisk University Galleries and Greenville County Museum of Art.

Prentiss Taylor was born on December 13,1907, to John Eastlack Taylor and Beatrice Hottel.

In high school, Prentiss graduated from McKinley "Tech" High School, where he had studied art under Mary P Shipman, Alexis Manny and Charles Lamb.

Prentiss Taylor received further training in that medium at the George C Miller workshop in New York.

Prentiss Taylor established the Washington Wheat Press as a means for publishing, and within the paper were various poems and illustrations by the artist as well as poems and prose by Josiah Titzell, Rachel Field and Laura Benet.

Prentiss Taylor depicted mostly realistic and narrative scenes of subjects and themes that reflected his personal interests in music, architecture, religion and social justice.

In 1990, Taylor had his last exhibition while still alive at Georgetown University in their Lauinger Library called "The Art of Prentiss Taylor", which included lithographs, watercolor paintings and book jacket designs.

Hughes and Prentiss Taylor joined together towards the end of 1931 to create the Golden Stair Press, issuing broadsides and books with illustrations by Prentiss Taylor and texts by Hughes reflecting the ideas of the Harlem Renaissance.

Prentiss Taylor asked his friend, the white artist Prentiss Taylor, to illustrate the poems.

At age twenty, Prentiss Taylor met Charleston novelist Josephine Pinckney at the MacDowell artists' colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire.

Prentiss Taylor took a few photos of Zora Neale Hurston at parties in New York City, notably "The Crow Dance" in 1935.

Van Vechten is more closely tied with Langston Hughes, but Prentiss Taylor is colleagues by association.

Prentiss Taylor was a pioneer in psychotherapy through art within Harlem Renaissance figures and various clients.

Prentiss Taylor appears in the 'Lesbian and Gay Presence' in the Archives of American Art.

Composer Aaron Copland, a private man much like Prentiss Taylor, was disinclined to write about his personal life.

Copland and Prentiss Taylor met in the summer of 1928, and the two struck up a correspondence in November of that year.

Taylor studied painting with Charles W Hawthorne in Provincetown until Taylor discovered lithography, then he occasionally did wash painting with ink, several watercolor paintings in his westward travels and oil painting occasionally, but more lithographs were produced total.

Prentiss Taylor spent a great of time in the Charleston, SC area and produced a group of prints that captured the feel of the time.

Prentiss Taylor began his study of lithography in 1931 at the Art Students League in New York City.

Prentiss Taylor traveled extensively, particularly in the American Southwest and Mexico, whose landscapes and culture heavily flavor and influence his perspective and style of lithography.

From 1943 to 1954 Prentiss Taylor served as art therapist on the staff of St Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, and later with the staff of Chestnut Lodge in Rockville, Maryland.

In 1935, Prentiss Taylor taught lithography at Studio House in Washington DC.

Prentiss Taylor returned to DC and taught oil painting at American University from 1955 until 1975.

Prentiss Taylor moved back to DC in 1926 to finish high school, then in 1927 found early work at 19 in New York City designing costumes for a stage revue, while designing book jackets and publishing prose.

From 1930 to 1935 Prentiss Taylor worked and studied in New York City in Greenwich Village, and traveled to Charleston, SC for 4 months in 1933 which led to a series of lithographs.

In 1935, Prentiss Taylor returned to live in Washington DC, and moved again shortly in 1936 across the Potomac in Virginia and remained there until 1954.

Prentiss Taylor was represented by the Franz Bader Gallery in Washington, DC, and by the Bethesda Art Gallery in Maryland.

In 1942, Prentiss Taylor was elected President of the Society of Washington Printmakers, a position he held for thirty-four years.

Rare Harlem Renaissance publications illustrated by Prentiss Taylor found in these files are Golden Stair Broadsides, Opportunity Journal of Negro Life, The Rebel Poet, and Eight Who Lie in the Death House.

The Prentiss Taylor papers offer researchers insight into the rich cultural documentation of the Harlem Renaissance and the development of twentieth-century printmaking as an American fine art.

The Prentiss Taylor papers were donated in 1978 and 1984 by Taylor, and in 1992 and 2004 by his companion, Roderick S Quiroz, for the estate of Prentiss Taylor.

Prentiss Taylor papers are located at the Yale University Library.