Monday, December 16, 2024

Jim Dine | Rainbow Faucet



















Jim Dine
Rainbow Faucet
New York City, USA: Tanglewood Press Inc., 1966
2 5/8 x 3 3/4 x 5 1/2”
Edition of 75 [+26 AP]


Dine produced Rainbow Faucet for the Tanglewood Press publication Seven Objects in a Box (below), which also included works by Tom Wesselmann (Great American Nude), George Segal (Chicken), Allan D'Arcangelo (Side-View Mirror), Andy Warhol (Kiss), Claes Oldenburg (Baked Potato) and Roy Lichtenstein (Sunrise).

The work is made from sand-cast aluminium, dipped in acrylic paint. Dine often used the rainbow motif in his drawings, paintings and prints, stating in a 1966 interview "When I use objects, I see them as a vocabulary of feelings."

The example at the top is listed as being an artist proof labelled “C”, from the twenty-six proofs labelled from A to Z. It is unclear if it was mounted onto painted wood by the artist or publisher, or the buyer. I have not seen another example like this. 


"The title and subject of Rainbow Faucet show Jim Dine's interest in fusing imagination and everyday life. Dine chose a faucet as the focus for this piece because he spent much of his youth surrounded by tools in his grandfather's hardware store. The artist appreciates the formal and expressive potential of hardware and tools and keeps a stockpile of these in his studio for inspiration. However, he did not render the piece realistically, but rotated the fixture so that it stands upright. The plumbing fixture tapers to a droopy point and emits a rainbow-striped drop of water. Positioned vertically, the faucet looks goofy and resembles a phallus or an animal sticking out its tongue."
- Smithsonian American Art Museum












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