I, Too, Am Thornton Dial
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION:
The LSU Museum of Art is thrilled to announce the 2023 opening of I, Too, Am Thornton Dial. Originally curated by Paul Barrett of Birmingham, Alabama, this exhibition provides a thorough overview of work by the pivotal vernacular artist Thornton Dial. I, Too, Am Thornton Dial will be on view March 30–July 2, 2023, at the LSU Museum of Art in Baton Rouge, LA.
Dial was born in 1928 to a sharecropping family in rural Alabama. His life was interwoven with poverty and tumultuous experience, having lived in the deep South through the Great Depression, Jim Crow segregation, and the Civil Rights movement. After dropping out of school at age twelve and working a series of odd jobs, Dial found steady employment at the Pullman Standard Plant in Bessemer, Alabama. There he honed his skills at construction and metal work, laying a foundation for his artistic endeavors. Dial began creating early-on, finding bits of odd scrap and debris, putting it together to make interesting forms that would decorate his home and yard.
When the plant shut down in 1981, Dial devoted his time to creating artwork. He drew inspiration from his life experiences, blending complex themes like Civil Rights, race, class, and family into sophisticated arrangements crafted with found objects—everything from bones, wood, toys, metal, and clothing. His condensed assemblages, although compactly layered with commonplace fragments of life, move with a lightness, pulling the viewer in to explore the cracks and crevices of the varied surface. His aesthetic was not limited to sculptural constructions; Dial’s masterful drawings and paintings demonstrate his deft hand at composition and line, through the exploration of reoccurring motifs, often women and tigers, a symbol of himself, in swirling masses of shapes and color.
After meeting the Atlanta-based collector William Arnett in late 1980s, Dial gained national attention, with his artwork being shown and acquired by large institutions across the United States. The artist died on January 25, 2016, in McCalla, Alabama.
I, Too, Am Thornton Dial, includes over seventy pivotal drawings, sculptures, paintings, and assemblages drawn from private and family collections. We would like to thank the lenders to the exhibition, including Doug McCraw, Robert S. Taubman, Brett and Lester Levy, Jr., Salomia and Ben Jeffers, Jerry Siegel, the Estate of William Sidney Arnett, and the Dial family. Thank you to sponsors Mary T. Joseph and Nancy and Cary Dougherty, corporate sponsors Taylor Porter Law Firm and CSRS LLC, and in-kind sponsor Lamar Advertising for supporting this exhibition. Additional support for exhibitions at the LSU Museum of Art is provided by the generous donors to the LSU Museum of Art Annual Exhibition Fund.
I, Too, Am Thornton Dial was originally curated by Paul Barrett, and the LSU Museum of Art exhibition is co-curated by Michelle Schulte, Senior Curator and Director of Programs at the LSU Museum of Art.
I, Too, Am Thornton Dial Campaign (includes publication features and cover, invitation, and other designed marketing collateral) was awarded a Bronze Award in the Campaigns category in the 2023 SEMC Publication Competition.
Watch Artist Interviews
Mr. Dial Has Something to Say and Monograph were produced by Alabama Public Television.
View 3D Scans of Dial’s Artworks
Below is a 3D scan of an artwork World Peace by Thornton Dial. Graduate students from LSU’s Digital Media Arts and Engineering (DMAE) program, Katherine Wilson and Meredyth Yorek, created three-dimensional scans by photographing multiple angles of Dial's sculptural works filled with found objects in the exhibition I, Too, Am Thornton Dial. Explore this work virtually!
Tour Thornton Dial’s Studio
Interactive studio tour provided by The University of Alabama at Birmingham. The featured tour audio is taken from a conversation between Richard Dial and John Fields, The Lydia Cheney and Jim Sokol Endowed Director of Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts at the The University of Alabama at Birmingham, recorded at AEIVA in early Sept 2022. The
LSU MOA Installation
Exhibition Lenders & Sponsors
We would like to thank the lenders to the exhibition, including Doug McCraw, Robert S. Taubman, Brett and Lester Levy, Jr., Jerry Siegel, the Estate of William Sidney Arnett, and the Dial family. Support for this exhibition and all LSU MOA exhibitions is provided by the generous donors to the Annual Exhibition Fund: Louisiana CAT; The Imo N. Brown Memorial Fund in memory of Heidel Brown and Mary Ann Brown; John G. Turner and Jerry G. Fischer; The Alma Lee, H. N., and Cary Saurage Fund; Charles “Chuck” Edward Schwing; Robert and Linda Bowsher; Becky and Warren Gottsegen; LSU College of Art + Design; Mr. and Mrs. Sanford A. Arst; and The Newton B. Thomas Family/Newtron Group Fund.
Thank you to sponsors Mary T. Joseph and Nancy and Cary Dougherty, corporate sponsors Taylor Porter Law Firm and CSRS LLC, and in-kind sponsor Lamar Advertising for supporting this exhibition.
100% of LSU MOA exhibitions are supported by donors like you! Consider sponsoring the I, Too, Am Thornton Dial exhibition to receive this bundle as a thank you! Give $1000 or more to receive a limited edition photographic print by artist Jerry Siegel, the exhibition catalogue, Thornton Dial: I, Too, Am Alabama, by the University of Alabama at Birmingham, a Thornton Dial Struggling Tiger lapel pin, and two tickets to a private dinner to celebrate the exhibition on Thursday, May 11 with the panelists and Dial family. Can't make the dinner? Get the bundle for $500.
Past Events
Press
LSU Museum of Art wins awards in the 2023 Southeastern Museums Conference (SEMC) Publication Competitions. Read this press release to learn more!