Thornton Dial’s life unfolded in tandem with institutionalized segregation and the gains of the civil rights movement. He first fabricated objects as a steelworker at the Pullman Standard Company in Bessemer, Alabama. When the company shuttered in 1981, Dial began to make sculptures, which developed into an artistic practice that included both fine art materials and found objects.

In his painted assemblages, Dial channeled a variety of perspectives on the politics and poetry of African American history. "Blood and Meat: Survival for the World" commemorates the martyrdom of civil rights activists with a tangle of anguished knots camouflaging the form of a tiger, Dial’s personal surrogate and a symbol of the fight for justice. Portraits of the assassinated Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and President John F. Kennedy surround a central veil alluding to the brutal murder of Emmett Till. With its suggestions of racial violence, terror, bondage, and fury, Dial’s work conveys an urgent—and enduring—sense of reckoning.