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14 works belonging to Jane Fonda for sale at Christie's 4m585t
On January 18, 2023, at Christie's annual Outsider and Vernacular art auction in New York, there will be a group of important pieces from the collection of actor and activist Jane Fonda: 14 pieces of art by Thornton Dial, Arthur Dial, and Thornton Dial, Jr. The actress has collected the works over the past 20 years. They include painted benches in the shape of animals by Dial Jr., which are expected to sell for $2,000 to $4,000 each, and large mixed-media wall pieces by Thornton Dial, which are expected to sell for between $50,000 and $100,000 each. Fonda has been collecting works by self-taught Black artists from the American South for a long time. Some of these artists are Missionary Mary L. Proctor, Purvis Young, and Ronald Lockett, who is Thornton Dial's cousin. She met the Dial family through the late collector Bill Arnett. In the 1990s, she went to his home in Atlanta. Christie's says that Fonda had mostly bought Plein air paintings by women in the past and that she was very moved by the work of artists like Dial, Lonnie Holley, and Joe Minter. "I couldn't believe how lively, energetic, brave, and raw these works were," she says, adding that she bought a few of them right away.
Several works by Thornton Dial offered for sale 392z59
The 14 pieces being sold have been with Fonda for a long time. Two assemblages by Thornton Dial, the son of Alabama sharecroppers who became famous in his sixties for the dynamic sculptures and wall pieces he made out of found objects, paint, and other things, are the most important pieces in the sale. Other works by Dial include an oil painting on wood from around 1988 that shows four trees and is four feet tall and ten feet long (estimated value: $30,000–$50,000); a larger-than-life-size painting of Uncle Sam on canvas and plywood from 1989 (estimated value: $20,000–$40,000); and several smaller paintings of women on paper (estimated value: $3,000–$5,000). His brother Arthur, who is more interested in telling stories through pictures, is shown by two mixed-media works on boards from 1989.
Jane Fonda s the Tinwood Alliance 5c6m4m
Fonda thinks that the Dials are a part of the great American art canon. "Found objects have been a part of art since the 20th century. It goes all the way back to Marcel Duchamp, who turned urinals into a "fountain," to my friend Bob Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns—not it's just these Southern artists," she said in a statement. "[Thornton] Dial made his environment out of found things, which I think is so beautiful. He gave things that had been thrown away a second chance by reusing them in a way that very few artists have ever done. Fonda invests in Tinwood Alliance, Arnett's foundation that s Black vernacular art. Tinwood Alliance has put on shows and written a book about the work of the Gee's Bend quilters in Alabama. She is also a trustee of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation, a non-profit that s the work of Black artists from the South.
Fonda has already sold at auction at least one piece by Thornton Dial. It was the assemblage Trophies (Doll Factory), which has a lot of different textures (1999). In 2019, the work was sent to Christie's. It sold for £225,000, which was more than its high estimate of £200,000. (including fees).
Jean Dubreil 
