Object Details
Artist
Jim Dine
Date
1959-60
Medium
Collage
Dimensions
17 x 120 inches (43.2 x 304.8 cm)
Credit Line
Gift of Inez Garson in memory of Alan R. Solomon (1920–1970)
Object
Number
73.042
Painter, printmaker, and sculptor, Jim Dine is often associated with the Pop Art movement of the 196(…)
Painter, printmaker, and sculptor, Jim Dine is often associated with the Pop Art movement of the 1960s. A prolific artist, Dine continues to work with a system of recurring visual themes that includes tools, hearts, robes, and trees. His assemblages often combine gestural painting with found objects loaded with his own personal symbolism, but allow viewers to integrate their own feelings and formulate their own connections. A visiting critic in Cornell’s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning in 1966, Dine’s studies in art began at the University of Cincinnati and the Boston Museum School in the early 1950s, where he worked in both painting and sculpture. After completing his BFA at Ohio University in 1958, Dine moved to New York City, and quickly developed an interest in the performance art “Happenings” being created at that time by Allan Kaprow and others. The Happenings’ combination of expressionistic painting, sculpture, and performance broke down the barrier between art objects and objects used in everyday life, and Dine’s subsequent work continued to emphasize the physical act of creation. Dine’s construction, Untitled, 1959-1960, is an early example of the artist’s combination of found material, expressive gestural painting, and symbolism. The repeating cross forms emerge from the dense textural surfaces, while the crumpled wheel from what may have been a child’s toy at the center mysteriously draws the viewer’s attention. The work relates to a performance piece done in 1960 entitled Car Crash, which was based on an actual accident involving the artist and his wife. (From “A Handbook of the Collection: Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art,” 1998)