African American Assemblage Art: Jane Fonda sells works by Thornton Dial and family at Christie's

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Jane Fonda in a speech in December 2022: Was "deeply moved" when she got to know the art

Photo: Jacquelyn Martin/AP

On January 18, 14 works of art owned by Jane Fonda will go under the hammer under the title »Things Grow in the United States«.

The items will be auctioned off as part of the Folk and Outsider Art auction at Christie's New York location.

The focus is on works by the artist Thornton Dial, who died in 2016, while others come from his brother Arthur and son Thornton Dial Jr. The actress has been collecting art by Afro-American artists from the US southern states for years.

According to Jane Fonda, she learned Thornton Dial's art through the collector and curator Bill Arnett.

In the 1990s she visited Arnett in Atlanta.

The works she saw there moved her deeply, Fonda is quoted as saying on the auction house's website: "I could hardly believe how much dynamism, energy, courage and rawness there was in these works."

At that time, Fonda mainly collected landscape paintings by female artists.

The visit to Arnett was a turning point in her collection: »I bought some things on the spot«.

Thornton Dial, illiterate and raised in poverty in Alabama to an unmarried mother who gave birth to him as a teenager, spent his free time assembling objects from found objects that he only began to appreciate as art in his fifties.

Through the artist Lonnie Holley, he came into contact with Bill Arnett, who at the time was a recognized expert on African art, and who persistently promoted Dial's work – with success: From the 1990s onwards, his paintings and sculptures were increasingly exhibited in museums – for example in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

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Arthur Dial's Eve and Adam (1989)

Photo: Christie's auction house

For Jane Fonda, these works of art not only comment on the social grievances and racism of the American South: "These are testimonies from people who have experienced them," says the actress, who has repeatedly used her fame for decades to make herself heard as a human rights activist Find.

A collage of Barbie dolls, »Trophies (Doll Factory)«, owned by Jane Fonda, was auctioned off at Christie's in London in autumn 2019. A record price of 180,000 pounds was achieved for a work by Thornton Dial, who died in 2016 at the age of 87 .

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Animal bench by Thornton Dial Jr.

Photo: Christie's auction house

This time, Thornton Dial's large-scale mixed-material works are expected to fetch between $50,000 and $100,000 in New York.

Thornton Dial Jr.'s painted animal-shaped benches, estimated at $2,000-$4,000 each, would probably be cheaper.

Jane Fonda emphasizes her closeness to the works: »They stood in my apartment in Atlanta for 20 years«.

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