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Thornton Dial

1928-2016

As a product of the sharecropping system, Dial started picking cotton at a young age. When he had the opportunity to move to Bessemer Alabama with  his aunt at 13, he had the chance to go to school, but was picked on for being so big in the second grade. He learned money and how to sign his name, kept small farms on other people’s property, and became a metalworker. When the plant closed in 1987, Dial started making art with found objects. He had always like the art he found in people’s lawns around Bessemer. Although scholars call talented artists with no training folk artists, many dismiss the title for Dial. Because although he lacks academic training his work is as adept as many schooled successful artists

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