WPI Oral History: Jim Dine on Tom Wesselmann

Jim Dine is an American artist active from the mid-1950s onward whose work defies neat categorization. An accomplished painter, printmaker, sculptor, and as of recently, poet, Dine is often closely associated with both the Pop Art and Neo-Expressionist movements. Along with Marcus Ratliff and Wesselmann, with assistance from Judson Church minister Bud Scott, he co-founded the Judson Gallery, an experimental art space that hosted exhibitions from all three co-founders as well as fellow artists like Claes Oldenburg and Allan Kaprow. Dine, like Wesselmann, also hails from Cincinnati, Ohio, where he first met Wesselmann as a young man. Highlights from his interview include candid reflection on Wesselmann’s shifting artistic phases and influences, memories of the Happenings, discussion of Wesselmann’s relationship with psychoanalysis, and an examination of Dine’s own artistic process.