Jim Dine

Jim Dine was born in 1935 in Cincinnati, OH. He earned his undergraduate degree in his home state from the University of Ohio in 1957. Shortly after college Dine relocated to New York where he joined the ranks of leading artists like Robert Rauschenberg, Lucas Samaras and future collaborator Claus Oldenburg.

Dine’s career has spanned five decades and covered a tremendous amount of ground. He was on the cutting edge of influential movements such as Pop-Art, Process Art and Neo-Dada. Dine has been involved with a multitude of styles and genres and his media has been every bit as diverse. His work has involved traditional drawing methods at times incorporating found objects on painted backdrops of varying techniques. Dine is also known for his scripted, site specific performances such as The Smiling Workman.

Throughout his career Jim Dine has used the human form and various stand-ins to explore identity from a social and psychoanalytic standpoint. One such body of work is the Toolbox series features many drawings of assorted tools. This stemmed from a lifelong fascination that originated when Dine was a boy and his father owned and ran a hardware store. Famous Pop Art works such as Marlboro Cigarette create a space which houses an actual object from pop culture then tied to personal signifiers.

Much of Dine’s recent work has focused on his alter-ego, the animated puppet Pinocchio. The story by Carlo Collodi corresponds with artist’s long-running interests in identity within the human form, the symbolism of hardware and manufacturing and the creative process.