Home Sweet Home

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Home Sweet Home

Artist Thornton Dial Jr. American, born 1953

Date1990

Dimensions48 × 72 in. (121.9 × 182.9 cm)

MediumEnamel on wood

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LineGift of Arthur J. Secor, by exchange, purchased with funds from the Florence Scott Libbey Bequest in Memory of her Father, Maurice A. Scott and gift of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation

Object number

2020.29

On View

Toledo Museum of Art (2445 Monroe Street), Gallery, 04

Label TextThornton Dial, Jr. composes assemblages, furniture, and sculpture that explore consistent themes of nature, the working man, and African American experiences. He is also a painter. He composed the autobiographical Home Sweet Home the week he left his job at the Pullman Standard Company in Bessemer, Alabama, which built railway cars. Dial, Jr. often employs humor and satire to explore pertinent themes, and this work has a certain lightness. He paints himself as a smiling frog, walking into a vividly hued swamp. The frog gleefully appears to be returning home, as Dial Jr. did to dedicate more time to his art and his community.