Jim Dine

Jim Dine was born in 1935 in Cincinnati, Ohio. He studied art at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, going on to attend the University of Cincinnati, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and Ohio University, Athens, from which he received his BFA in 1957. 

Dine moved to New York in 1959, where he, along with fellow luminaries Allan Kaprow, Claes Oldenburg, and Robert Whitman, initiated the Happenings movement. His first solo show took place at the Reuben Gallery, New York, in 1960.
 Dine’s work has a strong autobiographical character: early in his career, he was known for attaching everyday objects (generally his own personal possessions), such as clothing and tools, to his canvases.  As his career progressed, imagery such as bathrobes and hearts carried on the self-referential theme. Dine’s robes, in particular, serve as symbolic self-portraits.  

Dine has been a guest lecturer, visiting critic and artist-in-residence at major educational institutions around the country, including the Yale University and Cornell University, and has been given solo shows all over the world.  He was given his first major museum retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in the year 1970.