Thornton Dial, Ground Zero: Decorating the Eye, 2002, clothing, enamel, spray paint, and epoxy on canvas, 76 1/2 x 108 x 4". © Estate of Thornton Dial. “Mr. Dial’s America,”…
Thornton Dial "African Jungle Picture: The Ladies Had Knew That" I got to meet artist Thornton Dial once. In Richmond, Virginia the cooperative gallery I was a member of was hosting an exhibit of his works from the collection of Virginia Union University. I had stopped by the gallery the day before the opening and…
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For Sale on 1stDibs - An important part of the story of art has been characterized by self-taught ingenuity and work ethic honed by struggle for survival and passionate appreciation
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Abstract Composition
Holding Tight, 1994
29 Apr — 10 Jun 2023 at Blum Gallery in Los Angeles, United States
Self-taught artist Thorton Dial, born of sharecroppers and discovered by the art world in 1987, is dead at 87 years of age.
Thornton Dial and the quilters of Gee’s Bend are the principal representatives of a long-hidden culture of African-American art, that in the last few decades has just begun to be exposed, documented, and understood as an important part of the art-historical canon.
Over 40 of Dial’s large-scale paintings, drawings and found-object sculptures, including 25 new works.
A 1993 assemblage by Thornton Dial exemplifies exactly why he belongs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 20th Century Modern and Contemporary galleries, without any caveats like “southern,” “folk,” or “outsider” typically assigned to the artist.
Dial World offers an exciting, if selective, opportunity to gauge the artist’s formal impact — one long overdue.
It has been said that when gods fall, the earth shakes.
Sometimes, the home folks are the hardest to impress. Long after the wider world has opened its arms, home folks continue casting a leery eye.
Everything is Under the Black Tree, n.d.Thornton Dial, Sr. (American, b.1928)Paint on plywood, 48 x 31.5 inchesCourtesy of the Gadsden Arts Center Permanent Collection Enlarge
The Met is exhibiting donations from the Souls Grown Deep Foundation—which preserves the legacy of self-taught contemporary African-American artists—including works by Thornton Dial and Gee’s Bend quilts.
The market has never quite known what to do with the self-taught artist, who figures prominently in a current Met exhibition.
