Jim Dine

Jim Dine was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1935. He studied at the University of Cincinnati during his senior year of high school, later earning his BFA at Ohio University in 1957. Dine moved to New York in 1959 where he became a key figure in the Happenings movement. His talent was quickly recognized, leading to his first solo exhibition was held at the Reuben Gallery, New York in 1960.
Although Dine’s prominence in the New York art scene led him to befriend Pop Art figures including Claes Oldenburg and Roy Lichtenstein, his works strayed from the traditional subjects typically associated with that movement. Instead, the everyday objects Dine incorporates into his art are often personal possessions, lending a powerful sense of autobiography to his works. His continual concentration on favorite items like robes, tools, and hearts has become his signature style.
In 1967 Dine moved to England with his family where he practiced the art of printmaking and drawing, for which he has become well known. After returning to the United States, figure drawing became Dine’s priority. During this period in his life he created many self-portraits, as well as intimate depictions of his wife, Nancy. In the 1980s Dine began producing sculptures; since then he has created many evocative sculptures in bronze, from table-top to monumental in size, including many of his iconic imagery: Venus, hearts, tools, portraits, seashells, parrots, apes and cats.
Dine has been given solo exhibitions at museums throughout Europe and the United States, including a major retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1970, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 1999, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. in 2004.