Artist: Jim Dine
Title: Running Hammers in a Landscape
Medium: Screen-print, Etching and Aquatint with Hand Coloring on Arches Paper
Size: 33" h x 55" w
Edition: Printer's Proof, separate from edition of 18 prints by 107 Workshop, Wiltshire, England.
Inscription: Signed, dated, and numbered on front lower left "Jim Dine P/P 1987"
Year: 1987
Documentation: Gallery Certificate of Authenticity
Created in 1987, "Running Hammers in a Landscape" exemplifies Jim Dine's use of personal iconography across multiple printmaking techniques. Executed on a large scale, the work combines screen-print, etching, and aquatint, further enriched with hand-applied color. Its expansive dimensions of 33 by 55 inches emphasize the boldness of both imagery and gesture, enveloping the viewer in a densely textured composition.
The central motif is the hammer, a tool that recurs throughout Dine's oeuvre as an autobiographical symbol. For the artist, the hammer functions as both a personal emblem—rooted in his family's hardware business—and a broader metaphor for labor, creation, and the intersection of art and craft. Here, the hammers appear as upright vertical forms integrated into a vigorous, almost landscape-like setting. Their repetition creates rhythm and movement, while the surrounding gestural strokes and rich palette situate them within a charged, atmospheric environment.
As a Printer's Proof, this impression is distinct from the formal edition of 18, underscoring its rarity within the body of work produced at 107 Workshop in Wiltshire, England. The layering of media, coupled with Dine's hand coloring, makes each proof unique, balancing the precision of printmaking with the immediacy of painting.
Accompanied by a gallery Certificate of Authenticity, "Running Hammers in a Landscape" reflects Dine's continued exploration of memory, identity, and materiality, rendered through his iconic vocabulary of repeated forms.
About Jim Dine
Jim Dine is an American artist whose practice spans painting, printmaking, drawing, sculpture, and mixed media. Emerging in the late 1950s, Dine became associated with the Pop Art movement, though his work is more deeply rooted in personal symbolism and expressive gesture than in the detached irony often linked to Pop. His recurring motifs—hearts, robes, tools, Venus de Milo, and botanical imagery—serve as vehicles for exploring memory, identity, and the passage of time.
Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Dine studied at the University of Cincinnati, the Boston Museum School, and Ohio University, where he received his BFA in 1957. Shortly thereafter, he moved to New York and became part of the avant-garde art scene, staging “Happenings" with Allan Kaprow and Claes Oldenburg that blurred boundaries between performance and visual art. By the 1960s, his paintings and prints featuring hearts and everyday objects gained recognition for their bold color, textured surfaces, and emotional resonance.
Printmaking has been a central focus of Dine's career, with woodcuts, etchings, and lithographs demonstrating his technical mastery and adaptability across media. His large-scale woodcuts, in particular, highlight the physicality of his process and the expressive potential of repeated imagery. In sculpture, his work often reimagines classical forms through a contemporary lens, merging tradition with a distinctly personal vocabulary.
Dine's work has been exhibited internationally and is represented in the collections of major institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate, London; and the Art Institute of Chicago. Across six decades, his practice remains marked by a blend of formal rigor and deeply personal content, positioning him as one of the most versatile and enduring figures in postwar American art.
Please wait...
