Details

Title

Turkey Tower

Artist/Maker

Thornton Dial, Sr. (American, 1928–2016)

Date

1980s

Medium

Metal and paint

Dimensions

94 1/4 × 44 1/2 × 28 inches

Credit

Museum purchase, and gift of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation from the William S. Arnett Collection

Accession #

2017.39

Location

On View - Stent Family Wing, Skyway, Gallery 405

Thornton Dial made this tower from leftover welded metal chair parts from Dial Patio Metal Patterns, which he and Richard Dial started after the Pullman-Standard Plant in Bessemer, Alabama, where he worked for thirty years, closed in 1983. Because Dial often destroyed his early work—for fear of retribution in the climate of racial terror that surrounded him and other Black men of his generation—this work is the earliest of scale that has been preserved. Allegedly this sculpture convinced collector William S. Arnett of Dial’s extraordinary artistic prowess when the artist shared it with him in 1987.

Image Copyright

© Estate of Thornton Dial/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

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