The New Yorker on Bessemer's Thorton Dial and his Advocate from Atlanta Bill Arnett

Dial's work featured at the High Museum in Atlanta

To read this article in the New Yorker by by Paige Williams, you'll need a New Yorker subscription, or you can go out and buy this week's edition on the newsstand.

Link: Bill Arnett, Thornton Dial, and the Black Vernacular Art of the American South : The New Yorker

The article features artist Thornton Dial, who is eighty-four and lives in Bessemer, Alabama, and explores his relationship with Bill Arnett, the Atlanta-based advocate for outsider art. It also mentions Lonnie Holley of Birmingham and explores Arnett's relationship with the Southern black artists he champions. Arnett has been the subject some critical pieces. This piece paints him as unselfish and well-intentioned, though sometimes difficult. It is a nice read, especially about Mr. Dial, who finally again seems to be on the verge of getting his due as a major American artist.