Jim Dine: The Secret Drawings

Jan 19–March 4, 2022

Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery

The Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery of University of the Arts is pleased to present, for the first time anywhere, a recent series of over 40 large-scale drawings by Jim Dine.

Born in 1935 in Cincinnati, Dine is one of the world's most well-known artists. Over six decades, he has variously been associated with Abstract Expressionism, Neo Dada assemblage and Pop Art. Although Dine is perhaps most widely known for his Pop Art paintings with appended tools, heart and robe motifs, in actuality his oeuvre is quite varied and encompasses work in sculpture, printmaking, photography and poetry. Along with Claes Oldenburg, Dine was one of the major artists involved with Happenings at the Judson Memorial Church. In the 1990s, Dine revisited a period of refined images of Classical Greek sculpture and images of Pinocchio in drawings, painting and sculpture.

The exhibit in the Rosenwald Wolf Gallery will be a veritable frieze-like environment with large-scale expressionistic drawings butted side to side around the gallery. These "abstract" drawings are a continuation of a 2013 series of colorful paintings that seemed to have no imagery to them. In actuality, images were buried in layers of reworked and layered process. The Secret Drawings bear similarities to these canvases, carrying traces of natural forms: skulls, shells, figures, open mouths, breasts and genitals. Oval forms are suggestive of Dine's  balding head, a kind of self-portraiture. This stream of consciousness derives from psychoanalysis that the octogenarian artist has thoroughly engaged in for years. 

Our exhibitions are free and open to the public.