PaceWildenstein is showing "Jim Dine: Botanical Drawings" from today, March 16, through April 15, at the Wildenstein Gallery in New York. The exhibition will feature 11 works on paper, dating from 2004 to 2005 and consisting of a mix of materials, including acrylic, charcoal, gesso, ink, oil and spray paint.

Dine, an avid draftsman since the 1970s, has drawn inspiration from his studies of nature to complete this newest body of work. Dine has said, The reason Ive made plant drawings all my life is because Im in love with the plant. I draw, and its a way of expressing my feelings at that moment, and also a way to express my feelings about the plant.

Jim Dine (b. 1935) was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and studied at the University of Cincinnati and the Boston Museum School prior to receiving his B.F.A. from Ohio University, Athens, where he later enrolled in their graduate program. He moved to New York City in 1958, where he had his first group (1958) and solo (1960) exhibitions. Dine instantly became an active figure in the New York art world where he created and staged many of the first Happenings, along with artists Allan Kaprow, Red Grooms, Robert Whitman, and Claes Oldenburg.
 
Since his first solo exhibition in 1960, Dines paintings, sculptures, photography, and prints have been the subject of over 200 solo exhibitions worldwide, including over 20 solo exhibitions with the gallery since he began association with The Pace Gallery in 1976.

Dine has been the subject of five major surveys and retrospectives since 1970, including The Drawings of Jim Dine, a major traveling retrospective organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (2004); Jim Dine: Walking Memory 1959-1969, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NY (1999), which traveled to the Cincinnati Art Museum; Jim Dine, Isetan Museum, Tokyo, and Museum of Art, Osaka (1990-91); Jim Dine: Five Themes, the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, (1984-85), which traveled to the Phoenix Art Museum, The Saint Louis Art Museum, the Akron Art Museum, OH, The Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY, and The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; and Jim Dine, Whitney Museum of American Art, NY (1970).

Dine has been the recipient of multiple awards and honors, including the prestigious Commandeur dans lOrdre des Arts et des Lettres, Paris (2003), the Library Lions Award, New York Public Library (2003), an invitation by the Mayor of Siena, Italy, to design the banner for the citys traditional Palio celebration (2000), election to the Akademie der Kunste, Berlin (1998), an honorary doctorate from the California College of Arts and Crafts (1997), special commendation by the Friends of the Bezalel Museum (1996), the Pyramid Atlantic Award of Distinction, Washington, DC (1992), and election to the American Academy of and Institute of Arts and Letters, New York (1980).

Dines work is in numerous public collections worldwide including the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; The Art Institute of Chicago; The Cleveland Museum of Art; Hakone Open-Air Museum, Hakone-machi, Japan; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Musée national dart moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Museum of Modern Art, NY; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NY; Stedelijk Museum; Amsterdam; Tate Gallery; London; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and Whitney Museum of American Art, NY.




All images Courtesy PaceWildenstein (top to bottom): Photograph by: Kerry Ryan McFate; Photograph by: Kerry Ryan McFate; Photograph by: Ellen Labenski; Photograph by: Ellen Labenski