Research paper; Jim Dine

Rebekah Barrasso
Mr. Gallagher
English 12 CP P.6
March 30, 2010

Jim Dine a true artist

The American pop artist Jim Dines was born in 1935 in Cincinnati Ohio (“Jim Dine (1935 - )” par. 1). Dine was the eldest of two sons of Stanley Cohen, who owned a paint store, and Eunice Cohen, a homemaker. Dines inspiration and interest in art was relevant from a young age. Dine grew up intrigued by the colors and texture of paint in his father’s store. Dine himself has called his grandfather Morris Cohen one of the "real influences" on his art because he owned a hardware store, where Dine became fascinated with objects such as “tools, lawn mowers, sinks, and plumbing supplies that would play a critical role in his art”(Hendrick).

Dine studied at the University of Cincinnati and at the Boston School of Fine and Applied Arts in Boston from 1953. In 1957 he received a bachelor of fine arts degree from the Ohio University, Athens. He moved to New York City in 1959 (“Jim Dine (1935- )” par. 1). After moving to New York with his New Bride, Nancy Minto, Dine made a living teaching high school art class (“Jim Dine (b. 1935)” par. 3). From 1959 to 1960, Dine also was a pioneer of Happenings, works of art that took the form of theatrical events of demonstrations (“Jim Dine (1935- )” par. 3).

Dines early work consist primarily of images on canvas, to which three dimensional objects (eg, articles of clothing, garden tools) are attached (“Jim Dine.” 2010). Dines art is more expressionist than that of his contemparies, with an originality that allows him to stand out in the pop-art movement (“Jim Dine: Walking memory, 1959-1969”). In 1967 Dines work was included, along with Ray Litchenstein, Andy Warhol, Robert Dowd, Philip Hefferton, Joe Goode, Edward Ryscha and Wayne Thiebald, in historically important and ground breaking "New paintings of common objects" at the Norton Simon Museum. This exhibition is considered one of the first "Pop-Art" exhibitions in America (“Jim Dine”).

Since the mid-1960's Dine has painted and drawn hearts, sculpted hearts in plaster, bronze and steel, and he has even constructed hearts out of chicken wire and straw. (“Py-Lieberman. Beth. “King Of Hearts”) A Washington Post article once wrote of Jim Dine “Oh that Jim Dine..hes got heart"(“Py-Lieberman. Beth. “King of Hearts”). Along with hearts, skulls became a preferred motif of the artist: in many works, he combined the imagery of love and death, creating touching and sometimes personal works such as 'The Death at South Keningston' from 1983 which honors the death of his friend Rory McEwen” (“Jim Dine (b. 1935) par. 10).

Jim Dine has written poetry over the years, he introduced his poetry into his art work, for example exhibiting photographs of his poems at his New York Gallery.He also created a book a week, calling on his writings, paintings, photographs and more over the space of a year. The 52 books that make up the project called "Hot Dream" Dine has said in an interveiw "I had dyslexia and I had difficulty reading" "The only thing I could read was poetry because it was short. And it moved me always. Poetry was my prose" (“Antigue Muses Stir a Modern Orpheus”).

Since his first solo exhibition in 1960, Dines paintings, sculptures, photography and prints have been the subject of over 200 solo exhibitions worldwide, including over 20 solo exhibitions with the gallery since he began association with the Pace Gallery in 1976. Dine has been the recipient of multiple awards and honors, including the prestigious Commandeur dans l'ordre des Arts et des Letters, Paris (2003) (“Jim Dine: New paintings. Photographs and a sculpture open at one place wildensteinand palce McGill”). In all he has produced over 300 works. (“Jim Dine”) Expressionalism, Realism, Pop, Surrealism, Collage, painting on ceramics:he can do it all (“From Modernism backward: Jim Dine’s multiple styles”).

From 1959 to 1960, Dine also was a pioneer of Happeneings, works of art that took the form of theatrical events of demonstrations.(13) Dine immediately gained public attention as one of the originators of the "happenings" movement. Happenings, a series of shows held in art galleries, represented an effort to bridge the gap between the visual and preforming arts. (6)

The work of Dine echoes an intense commitment to life, its process, to human feeling as the measure of experience, and to art as its vehicle. In one of his "happenings," The Smiling Workman, of 1959, Dine appeared as a painter, the happy craftsman of the title, before a large surface on which he began to paint from three buckets of color with extravagant gestures, splashing and slopping the pigment on the "canvas." In an enormous outburst of enthusiasm he printed on his picture, "I like what Im doing," picked up a bucket of red paint, and, as the audience gasped, poured it over himself, and then jumped through the paper on which his "picture" was painted (Solomon par. 8).

In another happening called Vaudeville, 1960, in a set decorated with fresh vegetables, Dine did a kind of comic turn, extravagantly made up and dressed in the straw hat and striped shirt of the old vaudevillian. Dine onstage had a charismatic effect which depended on the intensity of his projection of himself and the activities he was involved in. (Solomon par. 9)

The "happenings" not only involved the audience more directly than conventional theater, but also gave to objects, which always played an important part in these events, a new importance, with the result, actually, that objects often became members of the cast, as important as the human actors (Solomon).

Dine gave up "happenings" before they began to be fashionable and widely imitated. He did so because he felt that they took him away from his central involvements as a painter (Salomon par. 11).


The earlier work of Dine tended to be more conventional in execution, simpler, with a single image. It was the concept or the image which was new and unfamiliar, and from the beginning, the choice of color and objects (Solomon par.18).

American pop artist Jim Dines “Study for this Sovereign Life” oil and sand painting is quite simple yet the viewer could interpret it in many different ways. The first time that I seen it I got the feeling of death and sadness.

In this painting, the artist, Jim Dines is said to have used oil paint and sand to create this painting, I have not seen this painting in person but I imagine the use of the two would show a lot more details that could not be noticed otherwise.

The painting includes two of Dines signature objects, a skull on the left side and a single heart on the right side. There is a tan rope dividing the two down the middle of the rectangle. The skull and heart are equally sized taking up the full area on each side, the skull is painted mostly white and very true to life, the heart on the other hand is red and cartoonish. Although the heart and skull are the same size, the heart appears to be bigger.

The background on both sides has a lot of blue although the left side with the skull has brown, red, white and black silhouetting it giving the impression of gloom. The color red is prominent on the right side of the skulls back ground, almost as if it is a reflection of the red heart on the other side of the painting. The use of these different colors also gives off an uneasy vibe and shows there is something unsettling with the image of a skull. The skull itself is a realistic image, mostly while with black shadowing in the eye sockets and around the skulls features and outlining the depth of the different areas in it. The left side of the skull seems to almost get blurry; the features on the skull are less defined than those on the right side. The left side of the jaw bone on the skull looks jagged and faded. On the side of the painting the skull is on there is a white line going down over the cheekbone of the skull continuing down to the bottom of the painting. On the top left corner of the back ground there is some black shadowing that stands out. Between the top corner of the back ground and the top left side of the skull there are white lines extending outward, the only way to describe this white area is it almost looks like a small ocean wave of white paint. The skull is represented neither scary nor morbid, it simply presents death.
On the right side of this rectangular painting is the shape of a heart, it is a deep red with two white marks on the tops showing a reflection of a white or bright light. The area around the heart is less hectic and pretty simple, it is mostly blue with a light shadow of dark grey and white that stands out mostly on the left side of the heart. It gives the impression of hope or content.

On the left side of the heart, just off the lower edge of it is a white splat, with the paint looking like it may have ran down a little. The rope down the middle is painted realistically; it’s brown and very straight and vertical. At the top of the rope it is a light brown color and it gradually darkens toward the bottom. It clearly divides the two sides boldly. It could represent the opposing sides, as death and love, or as hope and despair or even as life and death.

Dine sees objects symbolically, not in a conventional or historical sense, but in a new way witch is psychologically tuned. Familiar forms become vehicles of anxiety or of sexual feelings, for example, and he systematically explores the unconscious pressures generated by objects (Solomon par. 7).

Another one of Jim Dine’s paintings that I really like is called “The Earth”. Again Jim Dine uses one of his signature objects, hearts, to tell something. This painting is a much happier and less conflicting than his “Study for Sovereign Life”. The painting is again fairly simple yet a perfect example of pop art.

The main focus of this piece is a bold bright yellow heart in the center. The heart has some shadowing atop the curves showing depth compared to the bottom of the heart which is a solid bright yellow. This shadowing on the top of the heart is mainly focused on the left sides of the curves, its dark almost black and it transitions into a dark grey as it follows along the left side toward the bottom of the heart. The background is different hues of blue, dark blue and white deplicting a sky. In the “sky” he added black shading. Even with the dark shading the “sky” surrounding the heart is a clear bright blue sky with white added in the right spots appearing as patchy clouds. Within these “patchy clouds” are spots of black or even a dark blue randomly, it could almost appear to be debris flying around from the grass on a windy day.

At the bottom of the painting is grass like image painted green and dark green. The bottom edge of the painting where the grass is turns very dark like as if the heart could possibly be casting a shadow onto it. It gives the impression of the earth whether it is supposed to be grass or of a tree line. Just below the point of the bottom of the heart the background is mostly white, this carries up and starts to gradually fade with light blue and eventually getting into a darker blue. At the top where it is the darkest blue there is some black towards the corners and a little along the top left side of the heart where it curves in to the point at the top center of the heart.

The top of the painting is dark, almost appearing to be a night sky; small white circles seem to look like stars. On the very top of the painting where the sky is very dark there is small round white circle, a little bigger than the other ones, possibly suggesting a moon or planet.

Dines own clothes somehow continually get into his pictures, from an early tattered green corduroy suit splashed with paint, through Shoe and Hat, the various Tie and Coat paintings and An Animal (made from a bearskin coat he acquired that winter) of 1961, and the recent self-portraits in a red bathrobe, the White Suit, ect. (Solomon)

One of his recurring themes was a series of "self portraits" depicting a bathrobe shaped to his rather husky portions. He got the idea from a newspaper advertisement, a source of many pop art paintings, but Dine denied he was a pop artist. (6)





Works Cited

Abbe, Elfrieda. "An artist's approach." The Writer Aug. 2006: 6. Expanded Academic ASAP. Web. 19 Mar. 2010. http://find.galegroup.com.ezproxy.bpl.org/gtx/infomark.do?&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T007&prodId=EAIM&docId=A147617821&source=gale&srcprod=EAIM&userGroupName=mlin_b_bpublic&version=1.0

Jim Dines Approach to Art .
　
“Antique muses stir a modern uepheus.” The New York Times. 19 Oct. 2008. Boston Public Library Biographal resource center.

Dines Childhood issues that has inspired him write poems.

Baskind, Samantha. “Dine Jim.” Encyclopedia Judiaca. Ed. Micael Berendaum and Fred Skoinik. 2nd ed. Vol.5. Detroit:Mcmillan reference USA , 2007. 669-670. Gale virtual reference Library. Web. 21 Mar. 2010. http://go.galegroup.comezproxy.bpl.org/ps/i.do?&id=GALE%7ccx2587505230&v=2.1&u=&it=r&p=gvrl&sw=w

Dines experiences and designing’s .

Berona, David A. "Carpenter, Elizabeth. Jim Dine Prints: a Catalogue Raisonne, 1985-2000." Library Journal 127.17 (2002): 68. Expanded Academic ASAP. Web. 19 Mar. 2010. http://find.galegroup.com.ezproxy.bpl.org/gtx/infomark.do?&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T007&prodId=EAIM&docId=A93349143&source=gale&srcprod=EAIM&userGroupName=mlin_b_bpublic&version=1.0

What inspires Dines art approach.


Hendrik, Robert.” Dine, James(jim).” Scriber Encyclopedia of American Lives, Thematic series . The 1960’s. ED. William L O’Neill and Kenneth T. Jackson. Vol. 7. New York: Charles S. Cribhers sons. 2003. 205-252. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 21 Mar. 2010. http://go.galegroup.com.ezproxy.bpl.org/ps/ido?&id=Gale%7ccx3436600152&v=2.1&6=&it=r&p=GVRL&sw=w

Jim Dines childhood inspirations for art.


“Jim Dine: Walking Memmory, 1999.” Artforum International 1999 April. Boston Public Library Biographal resource center.

Dine’s work standing out in the pop art word
　
“Jim Dine (1935-).” E-FineArt.Com. http://www.e-fineart.com/biograph/dine.html.

The signature of his art.

“Jim Dine.” Art Promote Art & Culture Online. 1998. http://www.artpromote.com/jim-dine.shtml.

Dine produced over 3000 works of art.





Works Consulted

“Jim Dine(1935-).” Guy Peters Gallery. http://www.jimdine.be/pages/biography.php.

Dines “happenings”


“Jim Dine(b.1935.” Hollis Taggart Galleries. 2008. http://www.Hollistaggart.com/artist/brography/jim_dine/.

Honoring his friends death in his art.



“Jim Dine: New paintings, photographs, and a sculpture opens at one place Wildenstien and place MacGill.” Newswire 4 Mar. 2004. Boston Public Library Biographal resource center.

Dines use of hearts and skulls in his art.

“Jim Dine.” 0210. The History Channel website. Mar. 16 2010, 9:23. http://www.histiory.com/topics/jim-dine.

Dine’s 3 dimensional art.


“From modernism backward; Jim Dine’s multiple styles. New York times. 9 April 2004. Boston Public Library Biographal resource center.

Dine “name paintimg”

“Jim Dine.” Wikipedia. 16 Mar. 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Dine.

The first pop art exihibits


“Py-Lieberman. Beth. “King of Hearts” Smithsonian Feb.2006:34.

Dines Heart art.