Jim Dine: Drawing from the Glyptothek

Jim Dine, originally linked with Pop art, has developed into one of the most remarkable draftsmen and preeminent artists of our time.

Although best known for his pop-linked paintings of hearts, tools and robes, Dine based his exuberant drawings of Greek and Roman sculpture on his visits to the Glyptothek, Munich's museum of antiquities, as well as on statuary from the British Museum and the Prado. These mostly extroverted, bravura drawings are a form of time travel, an imaginative attempt to fathom the classical world while maintaining a modernist consciousness. The result is a curious hybrid, sometimes strained or unconvincing but often quite powerful, as in the fiercely expressionistic Wounded Trojan, who seems to represent the agony of all dying soldiers. In one hauntingly reflective study, the bust of Homer hovers above the nebulous face of Socrates like a Rorschach blot, a dark premonition of Western civilization. This handsome catalogue of a traveling exhibit includes appreciations by Fine, curator of modern prints at the National Gallery of Art, and Fleischman, director of the Madison Art Center in Wisconsin.
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