: "Jim Dine, some drawings," featuring 84 of Dine's drawings in
watercolor, charcoal, enamel, pastel and other media, will be on
view at the Neuberger Museum of Art from September 18 through
January 8.
Essentially an expressionist with a classical bent, Jim Dine's
style emphasizes draftsmanship while underscoring the ultimate
importance of emotional content. His images of robes, hearts,
tools and the Venus De Milo, which appear repeatedly in
paintings, prints and sculptures, are legendary.
Using bathrobes and tools as his signature subjects, Dine came to
prominence as a Pop artist in the early 1960s. Beginning in the
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 papermaking.
Many of the works in the exhibition are drawn from the artist's
own collection and the collection of Arnie Glimcher, Diana
Michener and PaceWildenstein, New York. They include large-scale
drawings as well as more typical full sheet size drawings.
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 catalog that accompanies the
exhibition.
Dine was born in 1935 in Cincinnati, Ohio. 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.
The Neuberger Museum of Art is at 735 Anderson Hill Road. For
information, 914-251-6100.
