Biography

Jim Dine is one of the most important pop artists and has left his mark on the art of the 20th century. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1935, he studied at the university there and at the Boston Museum School. In 1965, he became a guest lecturer at Yale University. Jim Dine has been exhibiting internationally since 1959 and his works can be found in the most important museum collections as well as in public spaces.

Jim Dine proves to be a true pop artist because he loves everyday objects, just like the other greats of the pop movement, but he combines this with abstract expressionism. This gives his objects an additional emotional dimension and, as can also be seen in his most recent works, this is a play with popular objects and symbols (such as the heart), which is embedded in an ongoing inner dialog. Recurrence (1), the reappearance of motifs, is very important in Jim Dine's oeuvre and provides the key to any analysis of the motifs and meanings of his works.

For Jim Dine, however, the object is only the occasion for his art. His Venus de Milo, for example, is not so much about the "real" Venus de Milo from the Louvre in Paris, but about the plaster statuette that can be bought there in the museum store. The artist's excursions into the realm of mythology through prefabricated themes from the media show on the one hand the enduring validity, but on the other hand also the arbitrariness of these mythologies today, in a time that, as many believe, is saying goodbye to the great stories.

But Dine's art is not simply a succinct, disparaging commentary on modern society and its treatment of cultural heritage. Rather, we hear a story about how we keep mythologies alive and why. At the same time, however, it withdraws from a context of meaning, emphasizing the importance of the aesthetic.

(1) See Walter A. Koch: Recurrence and a Three-modal Approach to Poetry, 's-Gravenhage 1966; id.: Varia Semiotica, Hildesheim, New York 1971

Museum and single exhibitions (selection)

2025

Jim Dine – Highlights, Albertina Wien 

2024

Frisbee! Sports and Leisure. Würth Collection, Musée Würth France, Erstein, France

2023

Collection Highlights + Collection Relations, Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima, Japan

Grünzeug. Plants On Paper, HLMD - Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany

Paraventi: Folding Screens from the 17th to 21st Centuries, Fondazione Prada, Milan, Italy

Andy Warhol to Damien Hirst: the Revolution in Printmaking, Albertina Modern, Vienna, Austria

2022

Into The New, Städel Museum, Frankfurt/Main, Germany

Geometry and Flowers. Collection Ludwig, Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen, Germany

2021

Jim Dine: American Icon, Snite Research Center in the Visual Arts, Notre Dame, IN, United States

2020

Jim Dine, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome, Italy

Jim Dine: Self-Portrait, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel

2019

Jim Dine: Pinocchio, Geppetto, and Other Personal Metaphors, Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art, Bloomington, IN, United States

Jim Dine En La Colección Del Centre Pompidou, Centre Pompidou, Málaga, Spain

2018

Jim Dine - Paris Reconnaissance, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France

2017

Jim Dine - A Life In Print, National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), Melbourne, Australia

2016

Jim Dine: I never look away, Albertina Museum, Wien, Österreich

2015

Jim Dine: About the Love of Printing. Grafik 1960-2015, Museum Folkwang, Essen

Venusfalle, SCHAUWERK Sindelfingen, Sindelfingen

Ikonen und Konzepte - Von August Sander zu Jim Dine, Stiftung Schloss Neuhardenberg

2014

Jim Dine. My Tools: Fotografien aus dem Bestand der Stiftung, SK Stiftung Kultur, Köln

La Beauté du geste: 50 ans de dons au Musée d\'art contemporain de Montréal, Musée d\'Art Contemporain de Montréal

2012

Jim Dine: Prints, Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, CA, USA

Strangers - Tra Informale e Pop dalle collezioni GAM, Galleria Civica d´Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin

Pop and the Sixties, Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Wien

2011

Once Upon a Time: Prints and Drawings that Tell Stories, The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, USA