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Thornton Dial, Sr. (1928-2016) is the most famous Vernacular artist of the Southeast, and is known for shattering the art world's notion of "outsider" art. Dial's body of work exhibits formal variety through expressive, densely composed assemblages of found materials, often executed on a monumental scale. These found materials include rope, sticks, broken garden ornaments, mattress coils, old shoes, chicken wire, and discarded appliances. His large, bold works, which explore themes of race and class, captivated the art world through sophisticated content and an aesthetic that defied stereotypes of “folk.” Although Dial was born in rural Alabama and had little formal education or art training, his work touches meaningfully on issues of racial inequality, struggles in modern life, and relationships between men and women, which allowed him to resonate with audiences around the world. Dial's works belong to permanent museum collections across the nation.