Staying South

Before Bessemer, Alabama, made headlines earlier this year following a unionization attempt at a local Amazon distribution warehouse, the Birmingham suburb played a significant, though less splashy, role in the history of American art—as the home of celebrated African American self-taught artists such as Thornton Dial (1928–2016) and his nephew Ronald Lockett (1965–1998). Often using assemblage techniques and making expressive use of found materials, Dial and Lockett—as w