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

Dine’s contribution to the Tanglewood Press publication Seven Objects in a Box, 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).

Rainbow Faucet is made from sand-cast aluminium, dipped in acrylic paint. Dine often used the rainbow motif in his drawings, paintings and prints (see below).


"When I use objects, I see them as a vocabulary of feelings."

- Jim Dine, interview in New York World Journal Tribune, 1966

"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