Picabia III (Groans) 1971

Jim Dine made this print, Picabia III (Groans), riffing on the work of the earlier 20th century artist, Francis Picabia. Dine’s work in the latter half of the 20th century challenged the art world’s obsession with the new, especially the dominance of pure abstraction. Like many artists of his generation, he mixed recognizable imagery with painterly gestures, opening a space for irony and personal expression, and pushing back against the formalist art criticism that reigned at the time. Look at how cartoons, anatomical fragments, and words overlap and interrupt each other. There is a sense of popular culture meeting the history of art. The references to Dada in Dine's work remind us of the ways artists in times of social upheaval and crisis often turn to irreverence. To understand Dine’s visual language, research into the artistic and critical debates of the post-war period is helpful. His work reminds us that the meaning of art is inseparable from its historical context.