Thornton DialOfficial Estate Site

TD

Media Archives & Portrait Photos

Publications

Monographs & Catalogues

Cover of the book Thornton Dial: Image of the Tiger, 1993. The whole cover is a detail of one of Dial's paintings in red, yellow, black and white, with the artist's name at the top left and the title along the lower edge.

Thornton Dial: Image of the Tiger

Amiri Baraka and Thomas McEvilley

1993 · 160 pages · 122 color illustrations · hardcover

Harry N. Abrams, with the American Folk Art Museum, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, and the American Center

ISBN 978-0-8109-3217-3

Cover of the book Thornton Dial in the 21st Century, 2005, showing a detail of a work in deep teal and green, with a pale creature-like form at its centre against a near-black ground.

Thornton Dial in the 21st Century

Paul Arnett, Joanne Cubbs and Eugene W. Metcalf Jr.

2005 · 324 pages · 297 color illustrations · hardcover

Tinwood Books, with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

ISBN 978-0-9719104-3-0

Cover of the book Hard Truths: The Art of Thornton Dial, 2011, showing a dark work threaded with pale branching lines and netting, the title set across the lower half in red and white.

Hard Truths: The Art of Thornton Dial

Joanne Cubbs and Eugene W. Metcalf, with David C. Driskell and Greg Tate

2011 · 216 pages · hardcover

Indianapolis Museum of Art / DelMonico Books / Prestel

ISBN 978-3-7913-5058-5

Cover of the book Thornton Dial: Thoughts on Paper, 2012. A drawing in red, blue and brown of a curled, coiling figure sits on a white ground, with the artist's name printed in blue at the lower left.

Thornton Dial: Thoughts on Paper

Edited by Bernard L. Herman · foreword by Emily Kass

2012 · 224 pages · 86 color illustrations · hardcover

University of North Carolina Press, with the Ackland Art Museum

ISBN 978-0-8078-3529-6

Front cover of Creation Story: Gee's Bend Quilts and the Art of Thornton Dial. A patchwork of quilt and assemblage fragments in orange, green, cream and grey, with the title in white capitals on a dark band across the centre.

Creation Story: Gee’s Bend Quilts and the Art of Thornton Dial

Edited by Mark W. Scala

2012 · illustrated · hardcover and paperback

Vanderbilt University Press, with the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville

ISBN 978-0-8265-1881-1

Front cover of Thornton Dial: Viewpoint of the Foundry Man. A black and white photograph of flattened steel straps and lengths of wire laid over a thick tarry surface, with the artist's name and title in white type at the left.

Thornton Dial: Viewpoint of the Foundry Man

Essays by Karen Wilkin and Phillip March Jones

2012 · 77 pages · illustrated

Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York

Front cover of Souls Grown Deep, Volume One. A painting of pale figures in pink and white walking in a group across a dark green and orange ground, with the title in cream capitals above them.

Souls Grown Deep: African American Vernacular Art of the South, Volume One

Edited by Paul Arnett and William Arnett

2000 · 544 pages · hardcover

Tinwood Books, Atlanta

ISBN 978-0-9653766-0-0

Front cover of Souls Grown Deep, Volume Two. A painting of a large white horse on a red ground, surrounded by small dark figures and haloed faces, with the title in white capitals across the upper half.

Souls Grown Deep: African American Vernacular Art of the South, Volume Two

Edited by Paul Arnett and William Arnett

2001 · 576 pages · hardcover

Tinwood Books, Atlanta

ISBN 978-0-9653766-3-1

Eight titles. Four covers are photographed; the other four show a title panel until their cover arrives — upload book-creation-story.jpg, book-viewpoint-foundry-man.jpg, book-souls-grown-deep-1.jpg and book-souls-grown-deep-2.jpg and they fill in on their own. To swap any cover for a better photograph, click it and use Replace in the toolbar, then update the alt text in the sidebar.

Featured in

Creation Story: Gee’s Bend Quilts and the Art of Thornton Dial
2012 · 128 pages, 43 color plates, hardcover
The Frist Center for the Visual Arts

History Refused to Die: The Enduring Legacy of the African American Art of Alabama
2015 · 216 pages, hardcover
Tinwood Books

My Soul Has Grown Deep: Black Art from the American South
2018 · 112 pages, 100 color illustrations, hardcover
The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Dirty South: Contemporary Art, Material Culture, and the Sonic Impulse
2021 · 288 pages, 175 color illustrations, 140 color plates
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

Press

Coverage of the work and the life. Each entry links to the original publication.

ARTnews
The 100 Best Artworks of the 21st Century — No. 47, Ninth Ward (2011)
Read at ARTnews ↗

TIME
Outside the Lines
Richard Lacayo · March 14, 2011
Read at TIME ↗

The New York Times
Thornton Dial, Outsider Artist Whose Work Told of Black Life, Dies at 87
William Grimes · January 26, 2016

ARTFORUM
Thornton Dial (1928–2016)
Bernard L. Herman · January 26, 2016
Read at ARTFORUM ↗

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thornton Dial, Alabama artist, remembered as ‘extraordinary’
January 26, 2016
Read at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ↗

The Washington Post
Thornton Dial, who turned scrap metal, animal bones and other found objects into museum art, dies at 87
January 27, 2016
Read at The Washington Post ↗

ARTS ATL
Appreciation: Thornton Dial’s work leaves a legacy of limitless imagination and intellect
Jerry Cullum · January 27, 2016
Read at ARTS ATL ↗

Artsy
Thornton Dial—Dead at 87—Was Not Just a Giant of Outsider Art but a Towering Figure of Art History
Tess Thackara · January 28, 2016
Read at Artsy ↗

PBS NewsHour
How a sharecropper’s son with a third-grade education changed the definition of the word ‘artist’
January 29, 2016
Read at PBS NewsHour ↗

The New Yorker
Composition in Black and White: A collector’s fight to get an untrained artist into the canon
Read at The New Yorker ↗

Forbes
Spotlight Finally Shines On Thornton Dial Sr. In Birmingham, Alabama

Smithsonian American Art Museum
Artist page — Thornton Dial, Sr.
Read at Smithsonian American Art Museum ↗

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
A Modern-Day Storyteller
MFAH magazine, Fall 2005

The Gordon Parks Foundation
Thornton Dial

Documentary

Mr Dial Has Something to Say

Streams from YouTube. Filmmaker credit goes here.