Thornton Dial
Encyclopedia
Thornton Dial is an artist who came to prominence in the United States in the late 1980s. He was one of 12 children and grew up poor and without his father's presence in the family, and this poverty led him and his siblings to create toys from the discarded objects around them. Dial lived in Bessemer, Alabama for most of his life, starting at the age of 10 when he moved from Emelle with half-brother Arthur to live with a relative. He married Clara Mae Murrow in 1951 and they had five children.
Dial met the artist Lonnie Holley, who introduced Dial to Atlanta collector and scholar William Arnett, who helped bring his work to national prominence.
Dial has lived, worked, and created art in Alabama
for his entire life. His principal place of employment was the Pullman Company
in Bessemer, Alabama
, until the company closed its doors.
Dial has had many important solo and group shows since his discovery by the art world. In a 1997 article about Dial, the New York Times mentions a show entitled "Bearing Witness: African-American Vernacular Art of the South" which "was described as the first attempt in New York City to organize a comprehensive exhibition of contemporary black 'vernacular art.'" In the article, Dial is described as an artist who "can barely read and write" but who friends describe as "smart as a fox" and good at math, with an ability to accurately estimate the size of a canvas by eye.
Michael Kimmelman called Dial "preternaturally gifted," and said he looks "dumfoundingly adept to some of us because his energy and fluent line, abstracted in maelstroms of color, easily call to mind Pollock and de Kooning." (Michael Kimmelman; "By Whatever Name, Easier to Like," NYT, 1997)
Dial is perhaps most well known for his 2005 exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. He was included in the 2000 Whitney Biennial. Today his large-scale assemblages sell for over $200,000. In an early 1990s 60 Minutes interview, Dial perceived host Morley Safer to be talking down to him as Safer portrayed Dial as an uneducated artist being manipulated by powerful white art elites.
Tanner Hill Gallery in Atlanta, GA as well as Chattanooga, TN showed "Thornton Dial: Recent Works," in 2010 with small drawings priced from $5,000 and assemblages as high as $125,000.
On February 25, 2011, a Dial solo show opened at the Indianapolis Museum of Art entitled "Hard Truths: The Art of Thornton Dial" and runs until September 18, 2011. The exhibition also travels to the New Orleans Museum of Art, The Mint Museum, and the High Museum of Art..
Dial's work, while often being classified as outsider or folk art, was profiled in a 4-page story in Time Magazine, where Richard Lacayo argued that Dial's work belongs to the category of "art," and shouldn't be pigeon-holed into any narrowly defined categories. "Dial's work has sometimes been described as outsider art
, a term that attempts to cover the product of everyone from naive painters like Grandma Moses to institutionalized lost souls like Martín Ramírez and full-bore obsessives like Henry Darger, the Chicago janitor who spent a lifetime secretly producing a private fantasia of little girls in peril. But if there's one lesson to take away from "Hard Truths: The Art of Thornton Dial," a triumphant new retrospective at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, it's that Dial, 82, doesn't belong within even the broad confines of that category...What he does can be discussed as art, just art, no surplus notions of outsiderness required....And not just that, but some of the most assured, delightful and powerful art around. (Time Magazine; March 14, 2011)
Dial met the artist Lonnie Holley, who introduced Dial to Atlanta collector and scholar William Arnett, who helped bring his work to national prominence.
Dial has lived, worked, and created art in Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
for his entire life. His principal place of employment was the Pullman Company
Pullman Company
The Pullman Palace Car Company, founded by George Pullman, manufactured railroad cars in the mid-to-late 19th century through the early decades of the 20th century, during the boom of railroads in the United States. Pullman developed the sleeping car which carried his name into the 1980s...
in Bessemer, Alabama
Bessemer, Alabama
Bessemer is a city outside of Birmingham in Jefferson County, Alabama, United States eight miles west of Hoover. The population was 29,672 at the 2000 Census, but by the 2009 U.S...
, until the company closed its doors.
Dial has had many important solo and group shows since his discovery by the art world. In a 1997 article about Dial, the New York Times mentions a show entitled "Bearing Witness: African-American Vernacular Art of the South" which "was described as the first attempt in New York City to organize a comprehensive exhibition of contemporary black 'vernacular art.'" In the article, Dial is described as an artist who "can barely read and write" but who friends describe as "smart as a fox" and good at math, with an ability to accurately estimate the size of a canvas by eye.
Michael Kimmelman called Dial "preternaturally gifted," and said he looks "dumfoundingly adept to some of us because his energy and fluent line, abstracted in maelstroms of color, easily call to mind Pollock and de Kooning." (Michael Kimmelman; "By Whatever Name, Easier to Like," NYT, 1997)
Dial is perhaps most well known for his 2005 exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. He was included in the 2000 Whitney Biennial. Today his large-scale assemblages sell for over $200,000. In an early 1990s 60 Minutes interview, Dial perceived host Morley Safer to be talking down to him as Safer portrayed Dial as an uneducated artist being manipulated by powerful white art elites.
Tanner Hill Gallery in Atlanta, GA as well as Chattanooga, TN showed "Thornton Dial: Recent Works," in 2010 with small drawings priced from $5,000 and assemblages as high as $125,000.
On February 25, 2011, a Dial solo show opened at the Indianapolis Museum of Art entitled "Hard Truths: The Art of Thornton Dial" and runs until September 18, 2011. The exhibition also travels to the New Orleans Museum of Art, The Mint Museum, and the High Museum of Art..
Dial's work, while often being classified as outsider or folk art, was profiled in a 4-page story in Time Magazine, where Richard Lacayo argued that Dial's work belongs to the category of "art," and shouldn't be pigeon-holed into any narrowly defined categories. "Dial's work has sometimes been described as outsider art
Outsider Art
The term outsider art was coined by art critic Roger Cardinal in 1972 as an English synonym for art brut , a label created by French artist Jean Dubuffet to describe art created outside the boundaries of official culture; Dubuffet focused particularly on art by insane-asylum inmates.While...
, a term that attempts to cover the product of everyone from naive painters like Grandma Moses to institutionalized lost souls like Martín Ramírez and full-bore obsessives like Henry Darger, the Chicago janitor who spent a lifetime secretly producing a private fantasia of little girls in peril. But if there's one lesson to take away from "Hard Truths: The Art of Thornton Dial," a triumphant new retrospective at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, it's that Dial, 82, doesn't belong within even the broad confines of that category...What he does can be discussed as art, just art, no surplus notions of outsiderness required....And not just that, but some of the most assured, delightful and powerful art around. (Time Magazine; March 14, 2011)