The Crommelynck Gate with Tools

Artist Jim Dine (American, born 1935)

Date1983

DimensionsH: 108 in. (274.3 cm); W: 131 1/4 in. (333.4 cm); Depth: 36 in. (91.4 cm)

MediumCast bronze.

ClassificationSculpture

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1984.77

Not on View

Label Text…from the time I was very small I found the display of tools in [my grandfather’s] store very satisfying…daydreaming amongst objects of affection was very nice. To enter the Paris house and workshop of master printer Aldo Crommelynck, artist Jim Dine passed through a gracefully curving wrought iron gate. As Dine worked in the studio, the 19th-century gate was in full view through the window into the courtyard below. Eventually Dine dreamt about the gate. His dream led to the creation of The Crommelynck Gate with Tools. For Dine, tools represent an alliance between work and imagination; they are symbols for the manual labor required to make art. While some of the tools on the gate look like they might work, they are actually sculptural forms rather than functional objects. In addition, the bronze casts of the tools are combined with casts of steel rods, tree branches, and twigs.Published ReferencesStriechler, Seth Ari, "Citywide Contemporary Sculpture Exhibition" [review], New Art Examiner, vol. 12, no. 5, Feb. 1985, p. 63, repr.

"La chronique des arts," Gazette des Beaux-Arts vol. 107, no. 1406, Mar. 1986, no. 26, repr. p. 42.

Exhibition HistoryToledo Museum of Art; Crosby Gardens, Citywide Contemporary Sculpture Exhibition, 1984, no. 16, p. 24, repr. p. 31.Comparative ReferencesSee also The Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Calendar of Events, April 1985, text and repr. Cf. Shapiro, Michael E., "Methods and Metaphors: The Sculpture of Jim Dine," in Jim Dine, Sculpture and Drawings, New York, Pace Gallery, 1984, pp. 6, 9, 11, repr. p. 5 and 18-19 (col.). Cf. A Bountiful Decade: Selected Acquisitions 1977-1987, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, 1987, p. 198-199.