Traylor made his art on the backs of candy packaging, discarded boxes and window advertisements. While his paintings and drawings often have a whimsical quality, they were informed by weighty themes like lynching, illiteracy and the Jim Crow South.

“It is the only existing body of work that has survived made by a person born enslaved,” Ms. Umberger said. “So it really is a treasure trove of information from this person who was raised to believe he was not a legitimate part of American society, who in the last part of his life decides he’s going to make this body of work that declares his self-worth and what he was witness to.”

“He did not have a model for what he was doing,” Ms. Umberger added. “He picked up a pencil and tried to figure out for himself what he was seeing.”

Several critics have questioned the motivation behind the glamorous, almost heroic status accorded Traylor today by art dealers, curators and critics, which has fueled soaring prices at auction. While noting that Traylor’s “drawn and painted subjects exude a remarkable exuberance,” G. Roger Denson, writing in The Huffington Post in 2013, added, “We might also regard the same good humor as facilitating the conscience of the white liberal collectors in offering no threat of indictment for the social injustices being perpetuated on blacks.”

The works in the Zwirner show were among the total of about 4,000 pieces in Mr. Louis-Dreyfus’s collection, including works by the likes of Jean Dubuffet and Helen Frankenthaler, much of which is in a museum-quality converted electrical supply warehouse in Mount Kisco, N.Y., that is open to the public by appointment.