Outsider artist Thornton Dial was born in 1928 in rural Alabama, Dial grew up in the Jim Crow South, working as a field hand and later as a metalworker for the Pullman Standard Company in Birmingham. His early life was marked by segregation, poverty, and the daily realities of survival.  These circumstances became the raw material for a visual language both deeply personal and universally resonant.

Dial began creating in earnest during the 1980s, fashioning assemblages out of cast-off materials of twisted metal, worn fabric, bones, wood, even toys, salvaged from his surroundings. These works were not only feats of invention but also metaphors for resilience, transformation, and the reclamation of history. His imagery, often monumental in scale, evoked the chaos of struggle and the beauty that can be wrested from it. Tigers, recurring in his paintings and sculptures, became stand-ins for survival and dignity in the face of systemic oppression.

What set Dial apart was not simply his materials but the fearless scope of his vision. His art addressed America’s most difficult subjects: slavery and civil rights, class inequality, war, disaster, and the fragility of democracy. Yet within these themes, his works also radiated vitality and spiritual force.

Although Dial was long overlooked by mainstream institutions, his career gained recognition in the 1990s through the advocacy of collector William Arnett and the Souls Grown Deep Foundation, which championed the work of Black Southern artists. Major exhibitions followed, including Hard Truths: The Art of Thornton Dial at the Indianapolis Museum of Art in 2011, which solidified his place as one of the most significant American artists of his generation. Today, his works reside in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the High Museum of Art, among many others.

Select Exhibitions

Thornton Dial: Image of the Tiger; American Folk Art Museum, NY, 1993

Thornton Dial in the 21st Century; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX, 2005

Hard Truths: The Art of Thornton Dial; New Orleans Museum of Art, LA; High Museum of Art, GA; Indianapolis Museum of Art, 2011-2013

I, Too, Am Thornton Dial; LSU Museum of Art, Baton Rouge, LA, 2023

Souls Grown Deep like the Rivers: Black Artists from the American South; Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK, 2023

Called to Create: Black Artists of the American South; National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, 2022-2023

Thornton Dial: The Visible and the Invisible; Hauser and Wirth, NY, 2024