Jim Dine

 

 

Jim Dine

 

 

Jessie (in Germany), 1978

Pastel and charcoal on
handmade paper

41.5 x 31.75 in. (105.57 cm x 80.65 cm)

Museum purchase

© Jim Dine

 

 

Jim Dine (American, b. 1935)

After achieving fame in New York as a provocateur of Happenings and Pop Art, Jim Dine took his young family and moved to London in the late 1960s. For five years he devoted his “legendary energy to making prints, writing, poetry, and immersing himself in European culture….” At the end of this extended period of self-examination, he decided to teach himself to draw—in the most traditional sense of the word. Returning to America, he settled on a farm in Putney, Vermont, and there he began a rich and sensuous series of figure drawings from the model. In 1979, the University Art Museum created the exhibition (and catalogue raisonné of the series by Constance W. Glenn) titled Jim Dine Figure Drawings: 1975–1979 (October 15–November 11, 1979), which traveled to five additional museums across America through 1980. Jessie (in Germany) was purchased from the exhibition, at which time Dine noted: “I’m interested in getting the portrait likeness. I’ve chosen the model for that reason.… I’m interested in drawing her because she is extremely thin, extremely muscular, and everything is articulated, particularly in her collarbone area and where the arm joins the shoulder…. I find that terribly exciting anatomically.…"