Jim (James) Dine (Born 1935)
Jim Dine is an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker, born 1935. Dine, a prolific artist, came to prominence in New York from 1959-1960 when he staged a series of “Happenings”, creating action painting and assemblages. His works often repeat a visual theme (hearts) or frequently utilize objects (shoes, toothbrushes), throughout different mediums. Although he used objects from everyday life, he was not a Pop Artist, though he was not a pure abstractionist. By the 80s, he was considered a forerunner of the Neo-Expressionist movement.
Diverse in subject and theme, Jim Dine’s career has spanned nearly four decades during which he has experimented in various media including painting, sculpting, printmaking and photography. His combination of painted surfaces, written text and found objects challenges the division between High Art and real life. Dine moved to New York in 1958 at the birth of the Pop Art movement and “Happenings” in which Dine was an early participant together with Allan Kaprow (1927 to 2006), John Cage (1912 to 1992) and Claes Oldenburg (born 1929).
Tools, robes, palettes, trees, gates and hearts have been recurring themes in Dine’s work. The Heart made its first appearance in 1965 when he incorporated it into stage designs for a San Francisco production of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. As a motif in his art, Dine likes this universally recognized emblem of one’s emotional core as a human being. He returns to it again and again, using it as a backdrop for what he describes as “symbolic self portraits.” The Heart for Dine embodies a gamut of personal impressions, emotions, and memories.
Information courtesy of Heritage Galleries May 2008.