Thornton Dial
1928–2016
Introduction
Dial began creating art from found objects in the 1980s. In 1987, he began painting full-time. His work explores relationships between races, between men and women, and between God and people. His children and other family members are also artists. His work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Some sources give his birth place as Bessemer, Alabama. A steelworker for thirty years, Thornton Dial created painted objects for much of his life before turning to works on canvases in 1987. A self-taught folk artist, Dial built up different mediums on his canvases, and he depicted a mix of human and animal forms. Throughout his works, Dial referenced moments in Black history such as the middle passage and the Los Angeles riots of 1992.
Country of birth
United States
Roles
Artist, assemblage artist, institution, naive artist, painter, sculptor
ULAN identifier
500033153
Names
Thornton Dial, Sr. Thornton Dial, Thorton Dial
Information from the Getty Research Institute's Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN), made available under the ODC Attribution License. Accessed December 23, 2025.
