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USA
South
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Bessemer, AL
Thornton "Buck" Dial, Sr.
1928-
Paintings/assemblage, allegorical animals
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Information:
"I make art about life—things people do, some that are true, and some that ain’t."
("Museum of American Folk Art Encyclopedia of Twentieth Century American Folk Art and Artists" by Chuck and Jan Rosenak, Abbeville Press, New York, 1990)
Born in tiny Emelle, Alabama, to an unwed teenage mother, Dial was never told the name of his father. In his early teens, after his mother married, he and his half-brother Arthur were sent to live with their grandmother and great- aunt in Bessemer. Dropping out of school in the third grade, he went to work at a wide variety of jobs, principally as a welder's assistant (only whites could be welders-proper for much of Dial's tenure) at the Pullman Standard railroad-car factory in Bessemer. In the early 1950s, he and his wife Clara May settled in the Bessemer neighborhood called "Pipe Shop." There they raised five children.
Although Dial began making "things" at an early age and continued to create art throughout adulthood, he kept his work hidden or destroyed it out of apprehension about the frankness of its content. His work came at last to the attention of the outside world in 1987. Since then, he has created an extremely varied body of work-paintings, assemblage, sculpture, works on paper-concerned with issues the artist considers of deepest concern to humanity. Emanating from African American traditions, these artworks have come to challenge conventional conceptions of folk art.
Southern Spirit
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Bibliography:
"Detour Art—Outsider, Folk Art, and Visionary Folk Art Environments Coast to Coast, Art and Photographs from the Collection of Kelly Ludwig" by Kelly Ludwig, Kansas City Star Books, 2007.
"Museum of American Folk Art Encyclopedia of Twentieth Century American Folk Art and Artists" by Chuck and Jan Rosenak, Abbeville Press, New York, 1990.
"20th Century American Folk, Self Taught, and Outsider Art" by Betty-Carol Sellen, Cynthia J. Johnson, Neal-Schuman Publishers, New York, 1993.
"Let it Shine: Self-Taught Art from the T. Marshall Hahn Collection" by Lynne E. Spriggs, Joanne Cubbs, Lynda Roscoe Hartigan, Susan Mitchell Crawley, Michael E. Shapiro and Peter Harholdt, organized by the High Museum of Art, 2001.
"Light of the Spirit : Portraits of Southern Outsider Artists" by Karekin Goekjian and Robert Peacock, University of Mississippi Press, 1998.
"Self Taught, Outsider, and Folk Art—A guide to American Artists, Locations and Resources" by Betty-Carol Sellen with Cynthia J. Johnson, McFarland & Company, 2000.
"Contemporary American Folk Art - A Collector's Guide" Chuck and Jan Rosenak, Abbeville Press, 1996.
"Flying Free: Twentieth-Century Self-Taught Art from the Collection of Ellin and Baron Gordon" by Ellin Gordon, Barbara L. Luck and Tom Patterson, exhibit catalog for The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center, 1997.
"Souls Grown Deep: African American vernacular Art of the South", Vol 1, Arnett, et al, 1995.
"Souls Grown Deep: African American Vernacular Art of the South", Vol 2, Arnett, et al, 2001.
"Testimony: Vernacular Art of the African-American South: the Ronald and June Shelp Collection", Cronwill, Danto, Gaither, Gundaker and McWillie, 2001.
"Wos Up Man?" Selections from the Joseph D. and Janet M. Sheen Collection of Self-taught Art" by Joyce Henri Robinson, Palmer Museum of Art, 2005.
"The Intuitive Eye, The Mendelsohn Collection" by Gael Mendelsohn, Michael Mendelsohn, Ricco/Maresca Gallery, FotoFolio,U.S., 2000.
"Contemporary Folk Art: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum" by Tom Patterson, Watson-Guptill Publications/New York, 2001.
"American Self-Taught Art: An Illustrated Analysis of 20th Century Artists and Trends with 1,319 Capsule Biographies" by Florence Laffal and Julius Laffal, 2003. |
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