Artist: Jim Dine
Title: The Soft Ground
Medium: Woodcut, Etching and Drypoint in Colors
Image Size: 13.25" x 20.25"
Sheet Size: 18.5" x 24.5"
Edition: 2/14, published by Alan Cristea Gallery, London
Inscription: Signed, dated and numbered on the bottom margin: "2/14 Jim Dine 2014"
Year: 2014
Documentation: Gallery Certificate of Authenticity
In "The Soft Ground", Jim Dine revisits one of his most iconic and enduring motifs—the bathrobe—rendered here as a pair of radiant forms glowing with color against a stark black ground. Executed in woodcut, etching, and drypoint, the image vibrates with texture and presence, each robe animated by expressive strokes in a spectrum of pink, green, red, blue, and yellow. The robes stand side by side, both visually resonant and psychologically charged.
Since the 1960s, Dine has used the bathrobe as a recurring symbol in his work—a stand-in for the self, stripped of literal portraiture. Originally inspired by a department store advertisement, the robe became a kind of surrogate figure: anonymous yet intimate, universal yet personal. In this piece, the dual robes suggest dialogue or duality—perhaps a reflection of the artist and his inner world—while their vivid coloration brings warmth and life to the silhouetted forms.
The deep black background amplifies the vibrancy of the color palette, creating a striking contrast that enhances the robes' almost spectral presence. The pairing of rich technique with emotionally resonant imagery exemplifies Dine's ability to blend formal innovation with personal symbolism.
"The Soft Ground" is signed, dated, and numbered on the bottom margin and purchase includes a gallery certificate of authenticity. Printed in an exceptionally small edition of just 14, "The Soft Ground" is a rare and evocative work by one of contemporary art's most poetic and expressive voices.
Note: This piece is not framed, the picture of the piece with a frame is a mockup to show the viewer how it might look when framed.
About Jim Dine
Jim Dine (b. 1935) is a key figure in postwar American art whose wide-ranging practice spans painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, poetry, and performance. Though often associated with Pop Art due to his use of everyday imagery, Dine's work is more personal, expressive, and psychologically resonant than much of that movement's output. Over a career spanning more than six decades, he has explored the intersections of the personal and the universal, creating a body of work marked by emotional depth, technical mastery, and recurring symbols that function as both self-portraiture and broader metaphors.
Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Dine studied at the University of Cincinnati and the Boston Museum School before earning a BFA from Ohio University in 1957. He moved to New York shortly thereafter and became part of a dynamic generation of artists redefining the boundaries of painting and sculpture. In the early 1960s, Dine gained attention for his pioneering "Happenings" and performance-based works, created in collaboration with artists such as Claes Oldenburg and Allan Kaprow. These ephemeral events blurred the line between life and art and introduced Dine's interest in the theatrical and symbolic aspects of objects.
One of Dine's most recognizable contributions to contemporary art is his use of recurring motifs—bathrobes, hearts, tools, Venus de Milo, and skulls among them. These images appear across media and decades, serving as vessels for introspection, memory, and emotional expression. The bathrobe, which Dine began using in the early 1960s, is a notable example. First inspired by a newspaper advertisement for men's robes, the image quickly became a surrogate self-portrait—absent of the body, yet charged with personal presence. Over time, it evolved into a powerful, nearly abstract form of self-representation and a symbol of artistic identity.
Dine is also an accomplished printmaker, having collaborated with leading ateliers such as Universal Limited Art Editions (ULAE), Petersburg Press, and the Alan Cristea Gallery (now Cristea Roberts Gallery). His innovations in etching, woodcut, and drypoint are widely celebrated for their painterly texture and expressive line. In many of these works, he uses color, layering, and drawing techniques to breathe new life into familiar motifs, creating images that are simultaneously intimate and iconic.
Throughout his career, Dine has maintained a deeply personal relationship to artmaking, often describing it as a form of autobiography. His works are informed by his life, memories, and inner states—imbuing commonplace imagery with emotional charge. The heart, another of Dine's signature symbols, appears not merely as a romantic cliché but as a deeply felt emblem of vulnerability and humanity.
Though he emerged alongside Pop artists like Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, Dine's sensibility has remained distinct—more lyrical than ironic, more confessional than cool. He has often rejected easy classification, instead forging a path that combines classical drawing, bold expressionism, and conceptual rigor.
Dine's work has been exhibited widely in major museums and institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Tate in London. He has lived and worked in New York, Vermont, Paris, and Walla Walla, Washington, maintaining an active studio practice into his late 80s.
Today, Jim Dine stands as a singular voice in contemporary art—an artist whose deceptively simple imagery reveals layers of personal history, technical achievement, and universal resonance. His continued exploration of identity, memory, and the self through art affirms his place as both a modern master and an endlessly evolving creative force.
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