RACE*SEX*POLITICS*RELIGION 2012
Dial was born in Alabama in 1928 and is an artist who began with little exposure to the formal art world. He is one of twelve children and never knew his father. His family made their living sharecropping, and he grew up helping out on the farm. Dial was ridiculed for being 13 years old in the 2nd grade. Instead of going to school, Dial snuck off to work different odd jobs including carpenter, house painter, cement mixer, and ironworker. Dial says he was always making art and expressing his ideas; however, he didn’t know it was art until he met William Arnett in 1987.
Arnett is an art dealer and collector from Atlanta, Georgia, who traveled throughout the Southeast meeting and discovering artists like Thorton Dial. This type of art, known as “self-taught,” “folk art,” or “vernacular,” was unknow to the larger art community and was not truly considered “fine” art until artists like Dial exhibited at museums like the High Museum of Art in Atlanta and the Whitney Museum of Art in New York.