Jim Dine

Dine was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. He attended the University of Cincinnati, and in 1953 begun attending evening classes at The Art Academy of Cincinnati where he was taught by Paul Chidlaw. Dine received a BFA from Ohio University in 1957.

Dine’s first break-out piece was his series Happenings, which he pioneered with Claes Oldenburg and Allan Kaprow, alongside musician John Cage.  These were a series of chaotic performance art, beginning with the 20-second The Smiling Worker (1959). In 1962, Dine was exhibited in the Pop Art exhibition New Painting of Common Objects at the Norton Simon Museum. This is recognised as one of the first major exhibitions of Pop Art, a movement that altered the course modern art would take over the next half century. 

Dine begun to exhibit his work at the Honolulu Museum of Art in 1962, and in 1966 exhibited at Robert Fraser’s gallery in London. The following year Dine moved to London, represented by Fraser’s gallery, and focused his efforts on production and development until 1970. The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts quickly purchased six works by Dine for their permanent collection. In 1983, Dine judged prints and drawings at the VMFA, and in 1984 received a solo exhibition at the Walker Art Centre in Minneapolis, Minnesota, entitled Jim Dine: Five Themes. In 1987, Dine published a book Jim Dine: Drawings 1973 – 1987 which was accompanied by a touring exhibition. In 2004, the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. organized the exhibition Drawings of Jim Dine, and in the summer of 2007 he participated in the Chicago public art exhibition Cool Globes: Hot Ideas for a Cooler Planet. In 2009, Dine exhibited at the Galerie Bellefeulle, and from 2010 has continued to regularly exhibit at the Alan Cristea Gallery in London.

Dine is part of numerous public and private collections, including the British Museum, London; the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the Hirshorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.; the Honolulu Museum of Art; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California; the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Tate Modern, London; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York and Landmarks, the public art program of The University of Texas at Austin.