Name/Title
untitledEntry/Object ID
2023.2.11Description
This watercolor painting by Thornton Dial, Sr. is a stylized portrait of a woman with one bird sitting on top her head and another draped around her neck. The color scheme of this work includes yellows, reds, and browns, with both thick and narrow outlines in black. The subject’s face is rather long, with almost no forehead, and she is crowned by a mass of light-brown hair and thick accent curls implied by the artist’s freeform linework. A long thin nose, close-set eyes, eyebrows, and under-eye folds are clearly defined by dark contours. Other details suggest that she is wearing makeup, like her thick, lined lips and rosy circles of blush on her cheeks. The female figure’s head and neck occupy the center of the frame, and are bordered on the top and bottom by pale yellow, crescent-shaped birds. A single red, overlarge feather caresses the woman’s cheek on the left side of the image, and a small nest of twigs is tangled in her hair.Artwork Details
Medium
watercolor on paperAcquisition
Accession
2023.2Source or Donor
Lou and Calynne HillAcquisition Method
GiftMade/Created
Artist Information
Artist
Dial, Thornton Sr.Role
ArtistDate made
n.d.Interpretative Labels
Label
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.Created By
ashley.williams@gadsdenarts.orgCreate Date
March 21, 2024