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Jim Dine Prints: 1985-2002

Akron Art Museum

Since the 1960s, Jim Dine (born 1935, Cincinnati) has transformed familiar everyday objects—hearts, bathrobes, tools, and skulls—into powerful symbols of loss, longing, joy, and wonder. This exhibition of forty-seven large-scale prints reveals Dine's devotion to these time-honored themes, but also his penchant for pushing the boundaries of print medium. He uses power tools to carve images into printing plates, combines multiple techniques within a single print, and hand colors many images using his fingers, brushes, and—in at least one instance—a straw broom. Dine’s prints are distinguished by their rich coloration, textured surfaces, and grand, painting-like scale.
Dine is known for reworking key motifs over a period of many years. The exhibition features signature images of hearts, bathrobes, hands, and Venus de Milo, themes the artist recast in inventive ways since 1985. (His Painting Around Mt. Zion a monumental image of four bathrobes that is part of the Akron Art Museum’s collection, will also be on view.) Dine’s haunting images of his newest subjects—owls, ravens, tress, and the character Pinocchio—express a more brooding, romantic sensibility. Drawn from dreams and memories, Dine’s images offer a kind of self-portrait of the artist, but they also reflect feelings shared by all of humankind.
This exhibition was organized by the Minneapolis Institute of Arts in collaboration with the Pace Editions INc. and Jim Dine.