A portrait of a man by self-taught Alabama artist Bill Traylor (circa 1854-1949), mixed media on paperboard, sold for $31,200 (includes buyer’s premium) to top the country Americana sale held by Garth’s Auctions on September 11 in Delaware, Ohio. Although sources disagree on his birth and death dates, fudging a year or two on each end, there’s no dispute that Traylor was born a slave on a cotton plantation in the American South and witnessed emancipation as a child before wor