[Item #5414] Poet Singing (The Flowering Sheets). Jim Dine.
Poet Singing (The Flowering Sheets)
Poet Singing (The Flowering Sheets)
Poet Singing (The Flowering Sheets)
Poet Singing (The Flowering Sheets)

Poet Singing (The Flowering Sheets)

Germany: Steidl, 2008. First Edition. Hardcover. “When I saw the terra cotta depiction of Orpheus at the Getty Villa, I was eager to speak with the sculptor across time. He was clearly drawn, as I am, to the idea of Poet (artist) and Muse. Here’s the delicate guy singing looking love-sick and enchanted by the two sirens looking over his shoulders. My whole life, as a maker of things and as a man putting words together, has been run by the eight-cylinder engine of desire for inspiration from women….At art school, a great place to find a muse, I found her and then she drove me back to Ohio because her interest was more usual rather than the unusual feeling I sang about. Eventually, I married very young (22). I set up with my wife and siren-muse a 40 year program of manufacturing the stuff to be inspired by when I needed it. It was morphine, ready to deliver when asked by the follower of Orpheus. Because she and I were, besides involved in this endless dance, living a large, wife and husband life, the life, as it often does, eroded us as humans and I went elsewhere sometimes for the beautiful song….We’ve grown old as two sirens behind the flame. We help each other tend it and though it sometimes flickers and gets low for both of us, it still remains capable of starting a major western fire” (Abridged Excerpt from “Never Cold,” the artist’s Summary-Afterword to this Exhibition Catalog).” As the above-quoted passage loosely intimates, “Poet Singing (The Flowering Sheets)” is based on an exhibition of work by Jim Dine (b. 1935), the Cincinnati, OH-born artist loosely affiliated with both the Pop Art and Abstract Expressionist movements. The exhibition, staged at the Getty Villa in Malibu, CA, dealt with not only Dine’s historic muse-making of the women (especially a few key women) in his life, but also his love of poetry—which started with Dylan Thomas. At age 19 (in 1954), Dine’s sculpture professor played for the class a BBC recording of the great Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas—and from that day on, Dine went on to dine on poesy daily (and is still an avid reader of verse today, aged 87 as of this writing). [ISBN: 978-3-86521-828-5]. Hardcover in illustrated boards without dust-jacket, as issued: First Edition, as stated on copyright page; produced in conjunction with the installation-exhibition of the same name (as enumerated above) & purchased by previous owner at the Getty Villa gift shop (with barcode-sticker at verso of RFEP to prove it). Also containing is a publisher's broadside (intended for tip-in with this publication & folded twice as issued) reproducing a montage of color photographs by Diana Michener & of Jim Dine at work in conjunction with the exhibition at the Getty Villa. In very fine condition with only minor-to-moderate shelf-wear, bumping to fine-edges & corners of front, back covers & similarly minor rubbing to same. Broadside in very fine condition, essentially as new with only slightest shelf-wear to fine-edges and slightly more pronounced creasing at fold points as issued by publisher. Very Fine. [Item #5414]

Price: $30.00