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Five Paintbrushes (Sixth State)

Artist Jim Dine (American, b. 1935)

CultureAmerican

Date1973

MediumInk on paper

DimensionsOverall: 27 1/2 x 39 1/2 in. (69.9 x 100.3 cm)
Overall, Image: 14 3/8 x 27 1/4 in. (36.5 x 69.2 cm)

InscribedThe print is signed "Jim Dine" on the left, numbered 2/25 on the left-center, and dated 1973 on the right.

Credit LineMuseum purchase

Object number2000.2

Not on view

DescriptionTen paintbrushes spaced evenly across the center of the plate. Drypoint and etched lines were added to the background tone.

Label TextJim Dine American (b. 1935) Five Paintbrushes (Sixth State), 1973 Ink on paper Museum purchase from the Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., Art Purchase Fund 2000.2 After achieving fame as a leading Pop artist, Jim Dine in the early 1970s began to produce paintings and works on paper with an increasingly figurative emphasis. His most significant works from this period-and his most accomplished technical achievements-are his prints, which feature simple, yet resonate depictions of robes, hearts, tools, and paintbrushes. Five Paintbrushes (Sixth State) is both a veiled self-portrait of the artist with his full, thick beard, and an eloquent celebration of the tools of his trade. The present etching represents the sixth and final state of a print that began as an airy, open image of five, evenly spaced brushes set against a simple, white ground. Through five reworkings of the plate, the image became successively denser, richer, and more deeply textured, reaching its ultimate imagery of ten wildly bristling paintbrushes placed against a field of jet-black ink. Edited By: DS Edited Date: 08/2005 Approved By: MHM Approval Date: 10/13/200Exhibition HistoryWilliams College Museum of Art, October 3 - November 5, 1976. Published ReferencesThomas Krens, JIM DINE PRINTS 1970-1977, New York: published in association with the Williams College artist-in-residence program by Harper & Row, 1977. Catalogue of an Exhibition held Oct 3 - Nov 5, 1976 at the Williams College Museum of Art.