Jim Dine, some drawings

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Jim Dine, some drawings

September 18, 2005 January 8, 2006

(above: Jim Dine, Mid-Summer, Paris, 2002, charcoal, pastel, pencil and flasche on collaged paper, 31 x 59 1/2 inches. Collection of Diana Michener)

Jim Dine, some drawings, an exhibition that features 84 drawings in watercolor, charcoal, enamel, pastel and other media by one of the most well-known artists from the last forty years of American art, will be on view at the Neuberger Museum of Art from September 18, 2005 through January 8, 2006.

Essentially an expressionist with a classical bent, Jim Dine's style emphasizes draftsmanship while underscoring the ultimate importance of emotional content. His autobiographical images of robes, hearts, tools and the Venus De Milo, which appear repeatedly in paintings, prints and sculptures, are legendary. In 1959, Dine had his first exhibition with fellow artist and co-collaborator, Claes Oldenburg. Using everyday objects as his signature subjects, Dine came to prominence as a Pop artist in the early 1960s. Beginning in 1970s, figuration and life drawing became the impetus behind much of his work, and Dine frequently used mixed media and ready-mades to produce his paintings. He subsequently returned to traditional painting techniques incorporated with collage, printing, etching, and paper-making. (left: Jim Dine, Owl in Chelsea, 2000, charcoal, pastel, printing ink and acrylic, 61 3/4 x 34 inches. Courtesy of PaceWildenstein)

Many of the works in the exhibition are drawn from the artist's own collection and the collection of Arne Glimcher, Diana Michener, and PaceWildenstein, NY. They include large-scale drawings as well as more typical full-sheet size drawings. Jim Dine, some drawings is organized by the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH, where it has been on view. The exhibition is curated by Stephanie Wiles, Director, Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, with Jim Dine. After leaving the Neuberger Museum, the exhibition will travel to the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL.

"The works on view in Jim Dine, some drawings show the intense way in which he observes the world around him and the excitement with which he records it on paper," writes Stephanie Wiles. "Dine captivates us with the way he sees and the way he makes images his own. The restlessness of his vision, the erasures and continual reworking of line, his facility with whatever media comes to hand all point to the artist's great pleasure in the act of drawing."

Dine indicates that he does not try to reproduce what an object looks like but strives to capture its essence. "My life is really a history of observing forms and taking in imagery. I don't mean in a photographic way, I mean in a way of feeling them structurally," Dine writes in the catalogue that accompanies the exhibition. He views his life as a history of observing forms and taking in imagery. Drawing makes invention more accessible for him. In drawing, there is an immediacy which starts the invention process. Even so, he expresses frustration in the fact that the process often takes a long time, and that the images sometimes don't happen right away. "I have to noodle around and find it on the paper or in my hand," he says.

Dine was born in 1935 in Cincinnati, OH. He attended University of Cincinnati and The Boston Museum of Fine Arts School and in 1957, he received a BFA degree from the University of Ohio. In 1958, he was lured away from the graduate program at Ohio University by the excitement of the New York art scene. Dine actively sought out and befriended many of his already established contemporaries, including Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenburg, Allan Kaprow, and Larry Rivers. His first involvement with the art world occurred during the Happenings staged by Allan Kaprow in 1959-60, in which artists actively exchanged ideas, sometimes resulting in a change of focus or content in an individual's work.

Jim Dine, some drawings is curated by Stephanie Wiles, Director, Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, with Jim Dine. A full-color publication of the exhibition, featuring essays by Jim Dine and Vincent Katz, is published by Steidl and available in the Neuberger Museum of Art Store.

Editor's note: RL readers may also enjoy these earlier articles:

and these videos:

Jim Dine is a 28 minute 1970 video directed by Michael Blackwood that provides a concentrated look at one of America's early Pop artists. The film was made during Dine's four-year residency in London. The artist talks about his connections to literature and about his frequent collaboration with poets; he also discusses his own poetry, some of which he reads for the camera. The parks and streets of London are the setting for Dine's frank comments about his voluntary exile in that city. On one walk, Dine encounters Gilbert and George as they endlessly repeat "Underneath the Arches" in bronze make-up, their earliest performance piece.

Jim Dine, a 38-minute 1978 Jim Dine interview from the Video Data Bank, a resource for videotapes by and about contemporary artists.

Jim Dine: A Self-Portrait on the Walls 28 minute /1995 / UC - "This remarkable documentary records eight days of intense work and quiet rumination as renowned artist, Jim Dine, produces an exhibition of huge, bold charcoal drawings directly on the walls of a gallery in Germany. It is an unusually transitory exhibition in that the drawings remain on the walls for only six weeks before being painted over."

Jim Dine: Childhood Stories 28 minute / 1992 / OIJ - "Jim Dine, the noted American artist, reminisces on his childhood in Cincinnati and the early influences on his art in this poignant interview. The tools from the hardware store that his father and grandfather owned; the songs his mother and grandmother sang; the trips to Florida for his mother's health; all of these memories contribute to the way in which Dine now paints. The early death of his mother, however, has been the biggest influence on Dine's work. At the age of 56, he is just beginning to deal with the issues surrounding her death. Family photographs, home movies and images of Dine's art complete the picture of this complex artist." Quotes are from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the National Gallery of Art.

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