A Tree that Shatters the Dancing
Jim Dine
American, born 1935
1980
A large mixed‑media drawing in which Jim Dine assembles synthetic polymer paint, spray paint, charcoal, and pastel on collaged paper to make a brooding, almost human tree that reads like a charged, living presence.
A towering, velvety black trunk fills the center, its tangled, frenzied branches scrawled and smudged across a turbulent blue ground, the layered marks and torn paper edges giving the surface a raw, tactile energy.
By enlarging drawing to the scale and gesture of painting and combining collage, spray, and charcoal, Dine pushed mid‑century drawing toward an expressive immediacy that links personal iconography with Abstract Expressionist and Pop concerns.
Medium
Synthetic polymer paint, synthetic polymer spray paint, charcoal and pastel on cut-and-pasted paper
Dimensions
(irreg) sheet 56 3/8 x 50 1/8" (143.4 x 127.5 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of Nancy and Jim Dine in memory of Myron Orlofsky
Accession
439.1982
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
