Medium: Lithograph
Edition:
Size: 24 x 28 1/2 in. (image)
Location: Inside N491 LC
Donor: Donated by E.F. Lindquist; conservation and exhibition generously supported by Professor Emeritus H. Dee and Myrene Hoover.
About the Artwork
Hearts appear repeatedly in Jim Dine's oeuvre. About the hearts, Dine has said, "The hearts were a prime object. Yes, the shape! It means a lot of things. It doesn't just mean love, it's anatomical, it's all kinds of things. It refers to all kinds of anatomy, too. But it also was a way for me to hang painting onto something."* In this print by Dine, the heart is not the only striking component of the composition. The color also immediately hits the viewer. The silver background provides an ethereal ground for the hearts to float above. The colors of the hearts hint at both order and chaos by organizing the first five hearts based on the colors of the rainbow and then moving to silver and the full spectrum of color in the final heart. This approach aligns with Dine's expressionistic bent in his work: "My color is always subjective. It has only been descriptive a few times, in the still lifes of the 1970s. I never really think about painting atmosphere, but what I do think about is sharpening my draftsmanship and about the power of objects."**
*Quoted in David Shapiro, Jim Dine: Painting What One Is (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1981), 204.
**Quoted in Shapiro, 112.
Bibliography
Dine, Jim. A Printmaker's Document. Göttingen, Germany: Steidl, 2013.
Feinberg, Jean E. Jim Dine. Modern Masters. New York: Abbeville Press, 1995.
Hennessy, Susie. "A Conversation with Jim Dine." Art Journal 39, 3 (Spring 1980): 168-175.
Shapiro, David. Jim Dine: Painting What One Is. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1981.