Jim Dine: Grace and Beauty

New mixed-media works between sculpture and painting from the ever-inventive Pop maestro

With its fairy-tale yet matter-of-fact title, Grace and Beauty reveals Jim Dine’s (born 1935) unquenchable enthusiasm for reimagining his iconic personal motifs—here, the classical torso, hearts and tools—in experimental combinations of mediums. The book contains his most recent works, all from 2022: mixed-media assemblages, and monumental bronze and stainless-steel sculptures—“an army of sculptures: flowers, machines and primitive skulls at once”—which he often adorns with thick coats of explosive color. These are hybrid forms between sculpture and painting whose stark contrasts display the artist’s quest for new territories of beauty. Dine introduces each group of works with a short personal text and complements them with documentary photographs taken at Kunstgiesserei St.Gallen, where his sculptures are made—the site of his proud collaboration with the foundry’s expert team.