NEW YORK – Craig F. Starr Gallery will open Jim Dine: Personal Allegiances: Hearts, Bathrobes, Palettes and Tools, on June 23rd. The show will include early drawings and prints from the 1960s and 70s.
Jim Dine’s early imagery derives from personal sources in the artist’s life. This exhibition focuses on four of his most recognizable images – hearts, bathrobes, palettes and tools - each image representing for Dine an aspect of himself or a memory of his childhood. Both his father and grandfather owned hardware stores, thus the use of tools in his work signifies both a powerful personal memory for the artist and a Duchampian interest in found objects. The bathrobe is an intimate article of clothing that represents the self, and the palette, smeared with paint, suggests the artist and his work.
Highlights of the show include Dine’s first lithograph on his bathrobe theme, the monumental 1965 Eleven Part Self Portrait (Red Pony) and the tour-de-force diptych 2 Hearts (The Donut) of 1970, which encompasses both the heart and tool themes. The tools are most comprehensively explored in his series Ten Winter Tools of 1973 and in a drawing and collage entitled Shellac Orientale of the same year that incorporates actual screwheads into the work. Double Apple Palette with Gingham also incorporates collage with its attached pieces of gingham against the backdrop of two artist’s palettes.