Positive Self Portrait, State 2

Jim Dine

1975

A small etching and drypoint self-portrait in which Jim Dine uses incised line and smeared tonal fields to confront and register his own face.

What strikes you is the single, brooding head printed at the center of a vast, pale sheet—its scoured, ink-washed surfaces, dark carved eyes, and scraped marks feel raw and tactile against the surrounding silence of the paper.

The work exemplifies Dine’s painterly, hands-on approach to printmaking, pushing etching and drypoint into a raw, psychologically charged mode that helped renew self-portraiture and experimental print practice in the 1970s.

Palette

Art Terms

Drypoint Etching Intaglio Self-portrait Portrait Gestural Contemporary art Print

Exhibitions

Jim Dine's Etchings

1978

Jim Dine: A Heart at the Opera

1983

Jim Dine Designs for a Midsummer Night's Dream

1967

Prints of the Sixties

1973