P.W.H. #6 (B.B. King)

Jim Dine’s Untitled exemplifies the artist’s emotional exploration after achieving fame for his “Happenings” in the late 1950s. The artist frequently describes his struggle to attain success, and then to shrink away from the attention which he had subsequently gained. Speaking of the early part of his career, Dine has said: “All I had was my fast left hand and this big ambition to be heard all the way back to Ohio” (J. Dine quoted in “The 50’s,” Jim Dine: The Alchemy of Images, New York, 1998, p. 9). The artist’s inclination towards hard work and introspection was manifested in the symbols that he used often throughout his career. The heart, a frequent motif in Dine’s work, recalls the artist’s association with Pop art and the appropriation of mass-produced imagery. The everyday items—a shoe, rope, an oil can—are employed with similar Pop Art intentions, but from the artist’s perspective with an emotional attachment too. Untitled is a cohesive representation of Jim Dine’s life reflected through his artistic process.