Thornton Dial
The Earliest Years: 1987–1989
June 6 –July 31, 2021
MARCH is pleased to announce Thornton Dial, The Earliest Years: 1987–1989, organized by Phillip March Jones for the Parker Gallery. This is the first solo exhibition of the artist’s work on the West Coast, and the first to focus on this formative period of his life and career.
In the late summer of 1987, Lonnie Holley brought his friend and collector, William Arnett to visit the home of Thornton Dial, an event that would change the course of their lives. Holley, an artist and seeker of like minds, had met Dial at the introduction of a former girlfriend and acquired several of his handmade fishing lures which hung on the wall of his home. Upon seeing them, Arnett suggested a visit... read more
Thornton Dial’s Yard, 1988 (Image: William Arnett, Courtesy of The Souls Grown Deep Foundation Collection at UNC University Libraries)
“My art is the evidence of my freedom. When I start any piece of art I can pick up anything I want to pick up. When I get ready for that, I already got my idea for it. I start with whatever fits with my idea, things I will find anywhere. I gather up things from around. I see the piece in my mind before I start, but after you start making it you see more that need to go in it. It’s just like inventing something.”
– Thornton Dial
Thornton Dial
Untitled (Abraham Lincoln), 1987
Rocks and Splash Zone compound with enamel on wood
23 1/2 x 24 inches
Thornton Dial
Untitled, 1987
Enamel on metal
Dimensions variable, suggested footprint 94 x 40 inches;
Height range: 33 1/4 to 38 1/4 inches
Thornton Dial
Untitled, 1987
Enamel on metal
Dimensions variable, suggested footprint 94 x 40 inches;
Height range: 33 1/4 to 38 1/4 inches
Thornton Dial
Untitled (Dog), 1987
Enamel on metal with Splash Zone compound
22 x 29 x 18 inches
“From the moment Thornton Dial started making art, he had an ability to pack expansive ideas into a single image or object. Dial’s sensitivity to the meanings embedded within materials and the inherent symbolism of color made his artworks soar. But as potent as Dial’s visual content was, the poetically incisive titles he gave these works were just as important. From a few pitchy words to a real mouthful, Dial’s titles ignited his artworks, setting them ablaze with the wisdom of an elder.”
– Leslie Umberger,
Curator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum
Detail of Black Star Shine (1987)
Thornton Dial
Untitled (Diptych, left), 1987
Wood, wire, vinyl, Splash Zone Compound, enamel on wood
27 x 45 x 2 3/4 inches
Thornton Dial
Untitled (Diptych, right), 1987
Wood, wire, vinyl, Splash Zone Compound, enamel on wood
44 3/4 x 22 1/4 x 2 3/4 inches
Thornton Dial
Untitled, 1987
Enamel on metal
54 1/2 x 72 1/2 x 35 inches
“These metal chairs were made out of the same scrap from the Dial’s patio furniture business. These chairs are a man and a woman, probably made to represent him and his wife, Clara Mae. He was a man who always had appreciation for the women in his life. Especially his wife and the women who raised him. When I see these chairs, I’m reminded of Mr. Dial’s greatness. I love that he made the man and the woman the same size. Equality was something
Mr. Dial believed in.”
– Lonnie Holley, Artist
Thornton Dial
Untitled, 1987
Enamel on metal
54 1/2 x 42 x 33 inches
Thornton Dial
Untitled, 1987
Enamel on metal
53 1/2 x 30 1/2 x 35 inches
Detail of The Poor People of the United States (1989)
Thornton Dial
People Will Watch the American Tiger Cat, 1988
Corrugated tin, Splash Zone compound, enamel on wood
48 x 72 inches
Thornton Dial
Black Star Shine, 1987
Conduit pipes, enamel, and spray paint on wood
48 x 48 inches
Thornton Dial
People Looking for the Tiger Cats / Tigers See So Many Faces They Don’t Know Which Way to Turn, 1988
Enamel on wood
24 x 72 inches
Roger Manley, Thornton Dial, Bessemer, AL, 1987, gelatin silver print.
“Art is future life, and I try to match up colors that fit that life. Art supposed to show the way the world is: sometimes dark, sometimes light. A piece of art is like the movement of the clouds, or the sun in the sky, like the works of the United States go, constant moving, always changing. The movement of the world always make changes in things. When I make art I have to keep making changes till I get it right.”
– Thornton Dial
Thornton Dial
The Earliest Years: 1987–1989
June 6–July 31, 2021
MARCH is pleased to announce Thornton Dial, The Earliest Years: 1987–1989, organized by Phillip March Jones for the Parker Gallery. This is the first solo exhibition of the artist’s work on the West Coast, and the first to focus on this formative period of his life and career.
In the late summer of 1987, Lonnie Holley brought his friend and collector, William Arnett to visit the home of Thornton Dial, an event that would change the course of their lives. Holley, an artist and seeker of like minds, had met Dial at the introduction of a former girlfriend and acquired several of his handmade fishing lures which hung on the wall of his home. Upon seeing them, Arnett suggested a visit. The two men, in conversation with Dial, found him to be somewhat guarded and it became clear that he didn’t know or acknowledge their concept of art. For the purpose of demonstration, Arnett asked Holley to make an artwork who then created a pocket-size wire sculpture of a woman’s profile that included a metal ring, some turkey feathers, and a discarded, mass-produced fishing lure, all found outside. Dial’s response to this impromptu creative exercise was: “If that’s art, then I’m going to show you some art.” Over the next few years, he made good on his promise.
This moment marks the beginning of the impossibly inventive first stage of Dial’s career as an artist, a period characterized by rapid innovation, material exploration, and self-discovery. The earliest works in the exhibition rely on the artist’s experience as a fabricator. With his children, Dial had a small furniture business and in the weeks that followed his meeting with Holley and Arnett, Dial transformed chairs, plant stands, concrete sidewalk liners, and other utilitarian objects into sculptures. As time went by, he began using more traditional materials, creating two-dimensional paintings and assemblages that explore cultural origin stories, religious mysteries, family dynamics, racial tensions, and the problematic socioeconomic realities of modern American life, among other subjects.
From the beginning, Dial insisted that his works had no underlying meaning or symbolism. This was, of course, patently false. Indeed, Dial had found yet another way to redirect the attention of too-eager eyes, shielding his thoughts through abstraction and visual misdirection. Indeed, there could be grave consequences for someone like Dial making bold critiques of the entrenched structures of power.
While imbued with meaning, these early works are more conversational than all-encompassing in nature, the viewpoint of a man who is creating, at first, for a more immediate audience: the residents of Pipe Shop, his neighborhood in Bessemer.
Thornton Dial, The Earliest Years: 1987–1989 provides the viewer with a glimpse into the mind of one of America’s most innovative artists, at the beginning of his artistic journey—a moment when he is in competition only with himself—learning and exploring his way into artistic greatness.
–Phillip March Jones
The exhibition is curated by Phillip March Jones and will be accompanied by a publication of the same title, with contributions by Jones, Aleesa Pitchamarn Alexander, Paul Arnett, Richard Dial, Lonnie Holley, Nikita Gale, Kéla Jackson, Katherine Jentleson, and Leslie Umberger.
Works by Thornton Dial (b. 1928, Emelle, AL; d. 2016, McCalla, AL) are included in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Gallery of Art, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Brooklyn Museum, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Dallas Museum of Art, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Whitney Museum of American Art, among many others.

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Thornton Dial
Untitled, 1987
Enamel on wood
48 x 96 inches

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Thornton Dial
Untitled (Abraham Lincoln), 1987
Rocks and Splash Zone compound with enamel on wood
23 1/2 x 24 inches

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Thornton Dial
Untitled, 1987
Enamel on metal
Dimensions variable, suggested footprint 94 x 40 inches;
Height range: 33 1/4 to 38 1/4 inches

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Thornton Dial
Untitled (Dog), 1987
Enamel on metal with Splash Zone compound
22 x 29 x 18 inches

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Thornton Dial
Untitled, 1987
Enamel on panel
19 1/2 x 14 3/4 inches

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Thornton Dial
Untitled, 1988
Enamel on board
26 1/2 x 31 inches

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Thornton Dial
Untitled, 1987
Metal and enamel on wood
16 x 24 inches

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Thornton Dial
The Poor People of the United States, 1989
Enamel on wood
84 x 38 inches

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Thornton Dial
Untitled, 1987
Enamel on wood
24 1/4 x 27 inches

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Thornton Dial
Untitled (Diptych, left), 1987
Wood, wire, vinyl, Splash Zone Compound, enamel on wood
27 x 45 x 2 3/4 inches

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Thornton Dial
Untitled (Diptych, right), 1987
Wood, wire, vinyl, Splash Zone Compound, enamel on wood
44 3/4 x 22 1/4 x 2 3/4 inches

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Thornton Dial
Untitled, 1987
Enamel on metal
Male chair: 54 1/2 x 28 x 33 inches Female chair: 53 1/2 x 25 x 32 inches

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Thornton Dial
People Will Watch the American Tiger Cat, 1988
Corrugated tin, Splash Zone compound, enamel on wood
48 x 72 inches

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Thornton Dial
Black Star Shine, 1987
Conduit pipes, enamel, and spray paint on wood
48 x 48 inches

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Thornton Dial
People Looking for the Tiger Cats / Tigers See So Many Faces They Don’t Know Which Way to Turn, 1988
Enamel on wood
24 x 72 inches

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Thornton Dial
Untitled, 1988
Enamel on wood
30 x 48 inches

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Thornton Dial
Untitled, 1989
Enamel on wood
48 x 60 inches