Thornton dial sr biography
Thornton dial sr biography husband.
Thornton Dial was a pioneering African-American artist who came to prominence in the late 1980s.
Thornton dial sr biography
Dial’s body of work exhibits formal variety through expressive, densely composed assemblages of found materials, often executed on a monumental scale. His range of subjects embraces a broad sweep of history, from human rights to natural disasters and current events.
Dial’s works are widely held in American museums; ten of Dial’s works were acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2014.
Biography
Thornton Dial was born in 1928 to a teenage mother, Mattie Bell, on a former cotton plantation in Emelle, Alabama, where relatives in his extended family worked as sharecroppers.
He lived with his mother until he was around three when Dial and his half-brother Arthur moved in with their second cousin, Buddy Jake Dial, who was a farmer. When Thornton moved in with Buddy Jake, he farmed and learned about the sculptures that Buddy Jake made from items lying around the yard,