[2] In the 1920s, Taylor studied painting with Charles W. Hawthorne in Provincetown, Massachusetts, but turned to lithography in the late 1920s to early 1930s during his enrollment at the Art Students League in New York City.

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

[4] During his time in New York, Taylor developed a bond with poet Langston Hughes and writer Carl Van Vechten.

[6][7] At age twenty, Taylor met Charleston novelist Josephine Pinckney at the MacDowell artists' colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire.

(book-southern life) Prentiss stated "I arrived on the Clyde-Mallory Line Steamer about the end of May 1933…I was lent the Pink House on Chalmers Street and I was able to stay until Labor Day.

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

[10] In Taylor's diaries during the time of him working as an art therapist, he had several meetings with Ezra Pound, and his wife and son.

[8] Prentiss was seen often with Jimmy Daniels, one of the most popular cafe singers and masters of ceremonies of the Harlem Renaissance, in New York, Carl Van Vechten and Langston Hughes—all of which are supposedly homosexual.

No letters from Taylor are in archives because Copland lived overseas in France most of the time and eventually they fell out of touch.

"With the first magic feeling of the crayon working in the fine grain of stone, I knew I was at home in lithography," the artist was to later write.

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

In addition, the February 1950 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry carried his important contribution to the literature, "Art as Psychotherapy.

(affiliated with Phillips Memorial Gallery) Prentiss returned to DC and taught oil painting at American University from 1955 until 1975.

Its title poem was "The Negro mother" Prentiss Taylor, a young artist in Greenwich Village designed the booklet, endowed it with a dozen handsome black and white drawings and supervised the printing of it.

-Langston Hughes [17] Carl Van Vechten was a huge supporter of booklet "Scottsboro, Limited" and financially backed it, so Taylor and Hughes were able to print and sell the 4 page poem, 4 page lithograph booklet at fifty cents each, and signed copies at three dollars.

From 1930 to 1935 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.

Between 1964 and 1969, Taylor visited Europe (Spain, Italy, France; later on the Low Countries and the British Isles; and Russia late in the decade.)

[4] In 1934, after fellowships at the MacDowell Colony and at Yaddo, the MacBeth Gallery gave Taylor his first one-person exhibition in New York City.

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

The collection consists primarily of subject and correspondence files, reflecting Prentiss' career as a lithographer and painter, his association with figures prominent in the Harlem Renaissance, his activities as president of the Society of Washington Printmakers and other art organizations, his work in art therapy treating mental illness, and his teaching position at American University.

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

Correspondence between Van Vechten and Taylor are found in the files, along with autographed copies of Van Vechten's booklets, and photographs of Harlem Renaissance figures (including Zora Neale Hurston, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, Diego Rivera, Frieda Kahlo, etc.)

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 collection contains photocopies of letters from Langston Hughes and Alice B. Toklas that Lawrence donated to Yale University Library.