Born September 10th, 1928 in Emmel Alabama. Thornton Dial, patriarch of a clan of highly talented artists, is a painter and sculptor who has produced dramatic and colorful works of folk art.

Dial has always been a jack-of-all-trades: a carpenter, a house painter, a cement mixer, and an iron worker. For almost thirty years (1952-1980), he worked on and off for the Pullman Standard Company (known for its railroad cars) in Bessemer, Alabama; during periods of lay-ff and when the company closed, he worked for the Bessemer Water Works fixing broken pipes under the streets.

“I was always make ideas,’ Dial says, “but the notion that they were art never occurred to me until I met Bill Arnett” in 1987. Arnett, a folk art collector and dealer from Atlanta, encourage Dial and other members of his family, and arranged showings of their work at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta (1988) and at the INTAR Latin American Gallery in New York City (1989).

Thornton Dial has deep convictions covering racial relationships in this county, as an artist’s work expresses. His assemblages represent “what makes up the world” as he seat: relationships between the races and between men and women; individuals in conflict and in harmony with nature and the community. One of his underlying and recurring themes is the struggle of blacks - both men and women - in society; God’s concern for mankind is another. He deals with these themes as fables and relates them through the media of constructions or assemblages and paintings. Sometimes his fables are very complex and include animal symbols as well as human forms.

Dial does not limit himself to one mode of expression; he paints and he sculpts. His paintings are done with oil-base and water-base paints in bold colors. His sculptures are made from materials that he collects - pieces of tin that he cuts into shapes, tree roots, wood, bottles, carpet, and plastic; he also often welds pieces of metal together. He sometimes attaches pieces of tin or other objects to his paintings to create dramatic assemblages. The artist has made hundreds of objects, but about three hundred are consider major works. His pieces are usually large, measuring around 4 feet square to 4 by 6 feet.