Desiccated goat, rat, and turkey; steel, rope, carpet, peach basket, wood, tire scraps, plastic toys, shoes, motor-oil bottle, wire fencing, chains, ironing board, farm and construction tools, wire, paintbrushes, enamel, spray paint, and Splash Zone compound.

While this list could understandably be mistaken for items encountered by John McPhee on one of his epic road trips, they are, in fact, the materials (along with canvas) that comprise an assemblage by Thornton Dial entitled Lost Farm (Billy Goat Hill), created in 2000.

The artist emerged from obscurity during the mid-1990’s, was included in the 2000 Whitney Biennial, but soon after returned to the shadows following some badly-managed media exposure. He is currently represented in a major exhibition at the High Museum in Atlanta, and in a solo exhibition opening this Saturday in New York City.

Mr. Dial was born in 1928 in rural Alabama, where he worked in the fields as soon as he could walk and carry things. He worked for most of his adult life as a welder for the Pullman railroad car company. But, the exhibition brochure tells us, he always "made things" and "gradually became adept in the media of painting, drawing, sculpture, and watercolor." 

Stars of Everything (detail), on view at the High Museum, in Atlanta. View Image Gallery.

His art is prized for its originality, its emotional impact and its acute commentary on the experience of an African-American from the South whose lifetime encompasses the brutal Jim Crow years and the burgeoning civil-rights movement. Although he cannot read or write, and never had formal schooling of any kind, his working methods place him soundly within mainstream art practices of the late 20^th century, such as appropriation, de-materialization and fetishism. While he was originally labeled an “outsider” or self-taught artist for lack of a more balanced point of view, his large-scale assemblages are far more than the sum of their components. Those items become annealed within the rhythms of their surfaces into a richly articulated totality that demands attention—and appreciation—as art. With the exhibtion at the High Museum, which was previously seen at the Indianapolis Museum of Art and the Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina, Mr. Dial's work is finally receiving the attention it deserves.

Mr. Dial's work is in the collections of such institutions as the Smithsonian American Art Museum; the Hirshhorn Museum; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Milwaukee Art Museum; and the Indianapolis Museum of Art, which originated the current exhibition, the most major study of the artist's work to date.

Hard Truths: The Art of Thornton Dial opened last week at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, where it continues through March 3, 2013. Information. The exhibition was organized by the Indianapolis Museum of Art, whose Thornton Dial microsite includes videos and excerpts from the Alabama Public Television documentary, Mr. Dial Has Something to Say.

On Saturday, a solo exhibition of Mr. Dial’s work, Viewpoint of the Foundry Man begins at Andrew Edlin Gallery in Chelsea, with an opening reception from 4-7 pm. 134 Tenth Avenue, NY, NY. Information or 212-206-9723.