Editor's note: The Frederick R. Weisman Museum
of Art provided source material to Resource Library for the following
article or essay. If you have questions or comments regarding the source
material, please contact the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art directly
through either this phone number or web address:
Jim Dine: some drawings
January 6 - March 25, 2007
The Frederick R. Weisman
Museum of Art at Pepperdine University is pleased to present Jim Dine:
some drawings, which will be on view from January 6 
through March 25, 2007. Featuring over 70 large-scale
works on paper, this major exhibition surveys the range and depth of Jim
Dine's draftsmanship over more than four decades. (right: Jim Dine
(American, b. 1935), Tool Drawing II, 1983, Mixed media, 70 x 70 inches
(177.8 x 177.8 cm). Collection of Arne and Milly Glimcher. Copyright Jim
Dine)
One of the founders of Pop Art in the early 1960s, Dine
is best known for his series of hearts, tools, Venuses, and bathrobes --
images that have become icons of American culture. In the early 1970s, Dine
embraced drawing, committing himself to the discipline of observing reality
and recording his perceptions. As he explained, "I taught myself how
to draw." From this moment on, drawing became an essential part of
his creative life.
Jim Dine: some drawings was
organized by the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH,
and sponsored by Oberlin's Friends of Art Fund. The installation at the
Weisman Museum was planned with the assistance of Jim Dine.
DRAWING AS CREATIVE PROCESS
Dine walks a fine line between realism and expressionism.
His manner of drawing is emotional, gestural, and physical, and involves
constant correction. Employing numerous media at one time -- often using
pencil, charcoal, watercolor, acrylic, ink, and pastel in a single work
-- he would create an image, then erase all or part before completing it.
In this complex process of creation-destruction-recreation, the underlying
ghost image provided him with a road map. Finished works are rich and layered.
They appear to emerge from the depths of memory and time, giving his drawings
the visual power of an unforgettable dream.
This exhibition, organized in close cooperation with the
artist, includes works from the 1960s to 2004 and runs the gamut from his
iconic subjects to more personal, intimate images. Included are seminal
examples of his "Life Drawings," in which he engaged the traditional
practice of drawing from the model to produce works full of psychological
resonance. His "Self-Portraits" are examples of intense self-scrutiny
in which he looks through a mirror to find the soul within. His drawings
from the Glyptothek reinterpret ancient Greek and Roman sculptures from
the German museum, rendering the eternal white marble forms as haunting
contemporary presences. Dine's symbolism is both personal and universal.
For example, his "Tool Drawings" not only refer to his grandfather's
hardware store but also allude to every person's ability to transform their
physical world.
THE ARTIST
Dine was born in 1935 and raised in Cincinnati, OH. After
moving to New York City in 1958, he created some of the first "Happenings,"
events that fused art and theatre. In the 1960s, he became closely involved
with the development of Pop Art. His paintings from the time often had real
everyday objects -- such as tools, rope, shoes, and neckties-attached to
his canvases. These objects were often the artist's personal possessions
and had an autobiographical content. Seeking respite from the New York art
world, Dine lived in London from 1967 to 1971. When he returned to the United
States in 1971, he settled in Vermont and began to draw from the figure,
which became the beginning of a lifelong passion for drawing. Over the years,
Dine has been the subject of hundreds of exhibitions internationally. He
was honored with major retrospective exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of
American Art in 1970, the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, in 1984, and the
Guggenheim Museum, New York, in 1999.
PUBLICATION
A hard-cover exhibition catalogue with 85 color plates
and text by Dine, as well as essays by exhibition curator Stephanie Wiles
and critic Vincent Katz, is available.
OBJECT LABELS FOR THE EXHIBITION
-
- From left to right
-
- Large Drawing of a Small Statue, 1978
- Mixed media
- Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College
-
- The Sitter Progresses from London to Here in
- Three Years, 1976-1979
- Pastel, oil pastel, charcoal and acrylic gesso
- Courtesy of PaceWildenstein
-
- A Variation of Jessie Learning Things from a Man, 1976
- Charcoal, pastel and mixed media
- Courtesy of PaceWildenstein
-
- Jessie with a Skull (#3), 1978
- Pastel, charcoal, oil and turpentine wash
- Courtesy of PaceWildenstein
-
- A Study from Blake, 1976
- Charcoal, pastel and mixed media
- Private collection
-
- In 1971 Dine settled on a farm in Putney, Vermont and began a
- series of figure drawings as a daily exercise. He wanted to be a
- "real" artist, which meant returning to Renaissance draftsmanship.
-
- "In the winter of 1974-75 I chose to closet myself in my Vermont
- studio with live models and teach myself to draw them.The act
- of drawing from the model every day, all day, for five years, instead
- of making me a realist, taught me to be conscious of the language of
- marks and of the fact that every mark had a specific task in the making
- of the whole drawing." -
- Jessie Among the Marks, 1980
- Charcoal, pastel and enamel
- Courtesy of PaceWildenstein
-
- Although Dine's drawings have recognizable subject matter, he does
- not see himself as a realist. Rather, he sees drawing as using marks
to engage and render the complex, dynamic world around him.
-
- "When I start a drawing I choose paper. I tack something on the
- wall. I put out flowers to draw. I look at tools on the floor. I'll
then
- bring a piece of detritus from something else or a piece of paper that
- has been stained because I spilled something on it. Chalk. Paint. A
mark.
- A splash. An accident. A footprint. That's just me gathering my forces.
The battle and the campaign start when I'm surrounded by all or some
- of these familiar objects."
-
- Untitled (Shell), 1981-1984
- Mixed media
- Collection of Diana Michener
-
- This poignant drawing of a seashell shows Dine's ability
- to combine delicacy and expressive aggression in a single
- image.
- .
- Easter Lily in New York, 1980-1982
- Charcoal
- Courtesy of PaceWildenstein
-
- The lily is a symbol of rebirth and regeneration. It is a traditional
- Christian symbol for Easter. For Dine, it symbolizes the process of
making art, which generates new creations. As Dine said in 2003:
-
- "The quest is to keep the thing alive-the drawing and the state
of grace."
-
-
- Left to right
-
- Tool Drawing II, 1983
- Mixed media
- Collection of Arne and Milly Glimcher
-
- Tool Drawing I, 1983
- Mixed media
- Collection of Arne and Milly Glimcher
-
- Jim Dine was raised in Cincinnati by his maternal grandparents, who
owned a hardware store. He worked there as a teenager and remembers being
surrounded by tools. While many see his depiction of tools in terms of
Pop art's focus on everyday objects, they actually held rich autobiographical
meaning for him:
-
- "I'm not a Pop artist. I'm not part of the movement because I'm
too subjective. Pop is concerned with exteriors. I'm concerned with interiors.
When I use objects, I see them as a vocabulary of feelings.I used them
as metaphors and receptacles for my marginal thoughts and feelings.I think
it is important to be autobiographical."
-
-
- From left to right
-
- Drawing from Van Gogh II, 1983
- Mixed media
- Private collection
-
- Drawing from Van Gogh X, 1983
- Mixed media
- Private collection
-
- In 1974, Dine was captivated by a single van Gogh drawing shown
- in a London exhibition. In 1983 he created a powerful series of
- "Drawings from Van Gogh" in homage to the Dutch Postimpressionist
- and proto-Expressionist. The turn to a European artist seemed natural
- to him:
-
- "I am quite pleased to have links to the past. I come out of a
tradition
- of European and northern European drawing and out of the American tradition
of painting. By 'American' I mean Abstract Expressionism-I believe Abstract
Expressionism comes out of Europe so it is similar in attitude."
-
- Nancy, Venice, 1986-1987
- Mixed media
- Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College
-
- Study for the Venus in Black and Gray, 1983
- Charcoal
- Private collection
-
- In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Dine turned to still life, which
he
- saw as a way to address one of the standard themes in painting since
- the Renaissance. He began to introduce poignant objects, such as a
- skull or Venus de Milo figurine, in order to assert a link with the
great
- art and subjects of the past.
-
- He made his first images based on the Venus de Milo in 1983 and it
- soon became a major theme in his art. His original inspiration was
- a small plaster cast of the famed Hellenistic sculpture. To make the
- image his own, he eliminated the head so that he could focus on the
- body as an eternal symbol of femininity. He saw Venus as an
- embodiment of the muse, but also as an archetypal mother figure.
-
- Self-Portrait, 1978
- Charcoal and pastel
- Collection of Diana Michener
-
- Jim Dine is a careful and critical observer. In this self-portrait
- he turns his probing gaze to himself. The resulting image is
- internal as much as it is external for the artist is looking
- deep within.
-
-
- From left to right
-
- Looking in the Dark #20, 1984
- Charcoal, enamel spray paint, acrylic and collage
- Collection of the artist
-
- Looking in the Dark #21, 1984
- Charcoal and pastel
- Collection of the artist
-
- Looking in the Dark #18, 1984
- Charcoal, pastel and acrylic
- Collection of the artist
-
- Looking in the Dark #1, 1984
- Acrylic and charcoal
- Collection of the artist
-
- "I like what happens between the eye and the hand-observing, translating.
I like the process of observing and drawing, the
- inventing, the changes that take place."
-
- For Dine, drawing entails constant correcting, reworking, building
- up and sanding down, tearing and patching the paper support.
- His intense concentration is best seen in this probing series of
- self-portraits. These honest renderings of the artist's own features
- contain elements of both stoicism and terror as the individual
- confronts himself directly and without illusions.
-
- Red Dancers on the Western Shore, 1986
- Charcoal on red paper; tetraptych
- Courtesy of PaceWildenstein
- These four large drawings were made from a small figure in
- the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
- Dine interpreted the sculpture as life size, alive and in fluid motion.
-
- The James Kirsch Postcard, 1986
- Mixed media
- Private collection
-
- James Kirsch (1901-1989) became a follower of psychologist Carl Jung
in Germany in the 1920s. He moved to Los Angeles in 1941 and became a key
leader in Jungian psychotherapy in California until his death in 1989.
He analyzed Dine in the mid-1980s. This figurine reflects the Jungian interest
in universal, primal archetypes.
-
- Atheism #13, 1986
- Mixed media
- Courtesy of PaceWildenstein
-
- "The Skull came from a conversation with a friend in Paris. She
confided in me that she and her husband had visited a 'channel,' a medium
who assumed the voice of a person from another world. This gave me the
idea of a skull, not as a dead person but as a vehicle for the voice coming
out. I saw it as the bare bones of me: a self-portrait, not as a téte
de morte but as a real person."
-
- Drawings after the Antique
-
- The Glyptothek ("museum of carving") in Munich is a great
repository of art from the ancient Greek and Roman world. Jim Dine first
visited it in 1985 by accident. "I had been meaning to go to the Alte
Pinakothek, to see the old paintings, when I saw it," Dine recalls.
Dine's first Glyptothek drawings were made during regular visiting hours.
Finding it difficult to work under public scrutiny, he was invited by the
director to draw when the museum was closed to the public:
-
- "The director said, 'You can come in any time.' So, I said, 'Okay,
I'll come in about four in the morning.' I'd set my alarm clock, come in
at four. I had my easel and my stuff in a closet. I had a piece of plastic
I'd put on the floor, and I'd work until about nine. There was one guard
who played chess with himself. I never saw him. Otherwise, nothing. It
was a little spooky, pitch black. This guy would put on one or two lights
for me. Then, I would draw as intensely as I could, to get this thing down.
Around nine, the guards would start to come in, and I didn't want them
to see what I'd done. I didn't want to have to explain it. I'd stop. I'd
take the drawing to the hotel, and the next day I'd bring another clean
piece of paper. I did the same thing every day for a week, maybe eight
days. It was such a pleasure to be able to meditate on the work of a colleague,
who is nameless. Some guy with a chisel did these things."
-
- "While I'm drawing I don't ever think about where the sculptures
were done.A lot of the things I draw from are Roman copies of Greek sculptures.I
don't want to draw these things as dead objects, as stone. I want to observe
them carefully, and then I want to put life into them and make them vigorous
and physical."
-
- Untitled, 1994
- Watercolor and charcoal
- Private collection
-
- Homer and Socrates (Homer, Roman copy
- of a bronze sculpture, c. 460 B.C.; Socrates,
- c. 380 B.C.), 1989
- Charcoal and watercolor
- Private collection
-
- Colossal Portrait of the Emperor Titus (c. 80 A.D.), 1989
- Conté crayon, charcoal and watercolor
- Private collection
-
- Twisted Torso of a Youth (Ilioneus, c. 300 B.C.), 1989
- Oil stick, acrylic, charcoal and watercolor
- over silk-screened photograph on two sheets of paper
- Collection of the artist
-
- Originally, this youth had arms raised to protect his head. The figure
has been identified as Ilioneus, the youngest child of Niobe. His tragic
death is recounted in Homer's Iliad:
-
- Last of all, Ilioneus raised his arms in supplication, though it was
to be of no avail. "O gods," he cried, "I pray you, one
and all, spare me!" So he prayed, not knowing that there was no need
to address them all. The archer Apollo was moved to sympathy, but already
his shaft had gone beyond recall: still, the wound that killed the boy
was only a slight one, and the arrow was not driven deep into his heart.
-
- Tanagra Figures (c. 300 B.C.), 1989
- Charcoal, oil stick and enamel paint
- Private collection
-
- These mold-cast, terracotta Hellenistic figurines were made during
the fourth century BCE in Tanagra, a town in Boeotia, north of Athens.
They usually depict women in everyday costume, with fashionable accessories
such as hats, wreaths or fans. The ancient artists delighted in revealing
the body under the folds of a cloak or gown. Tanagra figures are prized
for the stylish and lively depictions of drapery in action.
- .
- Panther (from a grave monument in Attica, c. 360 B.C.), 1989
- Charcoal and watercolor
- Courtesy of PaceWildenstein
-
- Sleeping Satyr (Barberini Faun, c. 220 B.C.), 1989
- Watercolor, charcoal and colored pencil
- Private collection
-
- The Barberini Faun is a famous, life-size, Hellenistic sculpture depicting
a drunken satyr. A "faun" is the Roman equivalent of the Greek
satyr. In Greek mythology, these were part-human male woodland creatures
with several animal features, often a goat-like tail, hooves, ears, or
horns. This statue was found in the 1620s in Rome and was owned by the
Barberini Pope Urban VIII. -
- .
- Aged Silenus with Wineskin (Roman sculpture
- after a Hellenistic original), 1989
- Charcoal and watercolor
- Private collection
-
- Palmette from the Parthenon (c. 440-430 B.C.), 1989
- Charcoal and watercolor
- Private collection
-
- Jim Dine's approach to drawing is physical and passionate, often vehement.
After making initial marks, he would often scrape the paper or abrade it
using power tools. In this sensitive drawing of a palmette-a decorative
element from the Parthenon-the highlights along the outer edge were created
by cutting into the paper with an electric sander. It is the balance of
delicacy and force gives the image its powerful presence.
- .
- Portrait Bust of the Emperor Trajan (c. 100 A.D.), 1989
- Charcoal, watercolor, acrylic and enamel paint
- Collection of the artist
-
- Sleeping Satyr (Barberini Faun, c. 220 B.C.), 1989
- Mixed media
- Private collection
-
- Trojan Archer (Paris, from the pediment of
- the Temple of Aphaia at Aegina, c. 500 B.C.), 1989
- Charcoal, oil stick, watercolor, acrylic
- and turpentine wash on two sheets of paper
- Collection of the artist
-
- Three Roman Heads, 1991
- Charcoal, oil stick, acrylic, shellac and ferric chloride; triptych