Indianapolis Museum of Art Blog

The Museum just acquired a sculpture by Augusta Savage titled Gamin. Why would I recommend this piece for museum purchase? The main reason, of course, is because it is a great work of art. It is the first piece by an African American woman artist to be acquired by the American collection. African American women artists were rare before 1945 and the availability of their work even rarer. The Museum was fortunate to be offered the most famous sculpture created by this very important Harlem Renaissance sculptor. In fact, for people who know Augusta Savage, the mention of her name immediately brings to mind an image of Gamin. The word means street urchin and the sculpture was meant to represent the young African American men who roamed the streets of Harlem and to give them racial pride and dignity.

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Does the war in Iraq make you angry? Sick? Disgusted? Do you want the world to know exactly how you feel? Thornton Dial certainly did. Never heard of Thornton Dial? Well, that is definitely a loss I hope to remedy.

Thornton Dial is an African American artist whose work is in the southern vernacular tradition, which means he is self taught with no formal art education and lives and works in the South (Alabama to be exact.) He makes sculptures and assemblages (wall hangings with things protruding from the surface) using discarded everyday objects that would otherwise wind up in a land fill. So essentially Dial is also an environmentalist. If you look closely at his art, not too closely because there are sharp edges that can leave nasty cuts on delicate skin, you will see mattress coils, paint can lids, old shoes, used clothing, buttons, chicken wire (he is also a chicken farmer), and plastic twine. Almost nothing in the Dial household wound up in the trash. He nails objects to a very large canvas that has been attached to a board, adds enamel spray paint and covers the whole thing in Splash Zone compound, the material used to keep boats water tight.

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