Jim Dine

During the early 1960s, with Pop Art in full swing, one of its earliest exponents had already moved away from its ideas and was striking out on his own. Marked by a compulsive repetition of subject matter yet tempered with humanity and warmth, the prints, paintings, drawings and sculptures that Jim Dine produced over the next 60 years form one of the most original bodies of work in 20th- and 21st-century art.

Born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1935, Dine spent his childhood above his family’s hardware store. After training at the Art Academy of Cincinnati and the Boston Museum School, he moved to New York and began to mix in Beat and early Pop-Art circles, with contemporaries such as Willem de Kooning, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol.

His first works took the form of ‘Happenings’ — chaotic, ramshackle performances popular among the New York avant-garde of the late 1950s. But, even at this early stage, his work was already characterised by an obsession with everyday objects.

By the early ‘60s, Dine had moved towards a more intimate and representational approach. A series of headless self-portraits in 1964 culminated in Double Isometric Self-Portrait (1964) and the first appearance of one of his enduring motifs, the men’s dressing gown.

Dine depicted commonplace items, such as robes, and archetypal shapes such as the heart or the Venus de Milo, and repeated them through countless permutations of colour and medium, from delicate prints to vast bronze sculptures. While repetition was a common motif in Pop Art, Dine employed it to a very different end. Pop was playing with art as mass culture; Dine was imposing a personal, lyrical individualism upon his faceless archetypes.

After moving to London in 1967, his work became obliquely autobiographical. He began to use writing in his painting, often the names of loved ones, and many of his titles, such as Nancy and I at Ithaca (1966–69), carry a deeply personal meaning.

A uniquely prolific and diverse artist, Dine returned to live and work in the United States in the 1970s.

JIM DINE (B. 1935)

Dorian Gray at Opium Den, from The Picture of Dorian Gray

JIM DINE (B. 1935)

Etching, Self Portrait (Ivory)

JIM DINE (B. 1935)

Dutch Hearts: two prints

JIM DINE (B. 1935) AND RON PADGETT (B. 1942)

Kansas City There I Was, from Oo La La (with Ron Padgett)

JIM DINE (B. 1935)

Woodcut Self-Portrait

JIM DINE (B. 1935)

At Nite, The Thicket!

JIM DINE (B. 1935) AND RORY MCEWEN (1932-1982)

Record with Rory McEwen: two prints

Jim Dine (b. 1935)

Big Black Zipper

Jim Dine (b. 1935)

Shoes Walking on My Brain

Jim Dine (b. 1935)

2 Hearts (Reverdy)

Jim Dine (b. 1935)

The Columbia River

JIM DINE (b. 1935)

The Colorful Venus and Neptune

Jim Dine (b. 1935)

At Home in Delft

Jim Dine (b. 1935)

Red Lite Bulb

Jim Dine (b. 1935)

In My Cincinnati Studio

Jim Dine (né en 1935)

Landscape London June

JIM DINE (NÉ EN 1935)

5 GÖttingen songs - No. 4 (Ginsburg)

Jim Dine (b. 1935)

A German Blackness

Jim Dine (b. 1935)

The Robe, Following Her #4

Jim Dine (né en 1935)

Blue October

Jim Dine (b. 1935)

The Cold Shines Through

JIM DINE (B. 1935)

Blood Red Orange and Red

Jim Dine (b. 1935)

The Primary Hand

Jim Dine (b. 1935)

Glow of July

JIM DINE (B. 1935)

My Left Hand and Me

Jim Dine (b. 1935)

The Beast

Jim Dine (b. 1935)

P.W.H. #6 (B.B. King)

Jim Dine (b. 1935)

French Pants

Jim Dine (b. 1935)

Halloween Tie

Jim Dine (b. 1935)

Five Large Heads in London

Jim Dine (b. 1935)

The Heart on the Rock

Jim Dine (b. 1935)

The Garden of Eden

JIM DINE (B. 1935)

The Columbia River

JIM DINE (B. 1935)

Objects in a Palette Landscape

Jim Dine (b. 1935)

At Kottbusser Tor

Jim Dine (né en 1935)

The greys of spring

JIM DINE (B. 1935)

Mother and Son

JIM DINE (B. 1935)

Midsummer Wall

Jim Dine (b. 1935)

Untitled (Rome Hearts)

JIM DINE (NÉ EN 1935)

Old pussy's Hankie

JIM DINE (b. 1935)

3 Palettes (Portrait of A)

Jim Dine (b. 1935)

We Stand By Ourselves

Jim Dine (b. 1935)

Emily Dine: Good News!

JIM DINE (B. 1935)

Full Sleeves, Empty Eyes

Jim Dine (b. 1935)

Mother and Son