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Lot Essay
The large scale mixed media construction Tiger depicts a theme often revisited by Thornton Dial. The tiger is a self-reflective figure loosely based on Thornton Dial's own life and the challenges facing black men in the South. The present work is a scattered assemblage of red, white, and blue on a black background. After careful reflection an abstracted figure constructed of found metal objects emerges from the chaos suggesting struggle or turmoil in a challenging life.
Born in 1928 in Emelle, Alabama, Thornton Dial left school at the age of nine to start working odd jobs at an ice house and as a farm laborer. A peripatetic early childhood ended when Dial and his half-brother Arthur moved to Bessemer, Alabama, to live with his great-aunt, Sarah Dial Lockett. Dial worked hard his entire life often holding down multiple jobs as a pipe fitter, a farm hand, a welder and a carpenter; at the same time he maintained two full time jobs at the Bessemer Water Works and a thirty-three year career at the Pullman Standard, constructing train cars. Throughout his life he was constantly making things, often compiling found objects, welding or constructing cast offs. Only at the very beginning of his career, Dial would bury or recycle his artwork after it was complete. Robert Hobbs suggests he did this "because of a lack of encouragement from his neighbors or because of fears of reprisals from the white community if his implicit critiques of social wrongs were discerned" (An American Anthology: Self-Taught Artist's of the 20th Century (San Francisco, California, 1998), pp. 174-175). In the 1980s, Atlanta art collector William S. Arnett offered Dial a stipend to create artwork full time. For more information on the artist, see Thornton Dial, Image of the Tiger (New York, 1993) and the Souls Grown Deep Foundation (https://www.soulsgrowndeep.org/artist/thornton-dial).
Born in 1928 in Emelle, Alabama, Thornton Dial left school at the age of nine to start working odd jobs at an ice house and as a farm laborer. A peripatetic early childhood ended when Dial and his half-brother Arthur moved to Bessemer, Alabama, to live with his great-aunt, Sarah Dial Lockett. Dial worked hard his entire life often holding down multiple jobs as a pipe fitter, a farm hand, a welder and a carpenter; at the same time he maintained two full time jobs at the Bessemer Water Works and a thirty-three year career at the Pullman Standard, constructing train cars. Throughout his life he was constantly making things, often compiling found objects, welding or constructing cast offs. Only at the very beginning of his career, Dial would bury or recycle his artwork after it was complete. Robert Hobbs suggests he did this "because of a lack of encouragement from his neighbors or because of fears of reprisals from the white community if his implicit critiques of social wrongs were discerned" (An American Anthology: Self-Taught Artist's of the 20th Century (San Francisco, California, 1998), pp. 174-175). In the 1980s, Atlanta art collector William S. Arnett offered Dial a stipend to create artwork full time. For more information on the artist, see Thornton Dial, Image of the Tiger (New York, 1993) and the Souls Grown Deep Foundation (https://www.soulsgrowndeep.org/artist/thornton-dial).