MFA Collection Books

Jim Dine Printmaker
Leaving My Tracks

Clifford S. Ackley, Patrick Murphy
Format Regular Price Member Price
Hardcover $55.00 $49.50

176 pages. 160 Color illustrations, 11 x 9 in, ISBN: 978-0-87846-777-8

Best known for monumental images of bathrobes, tools, and hearts that became icons of Pop Art during the 1960s and 70s, Jim Dine remains one of the most inventive and prolific printmakers of our time. His prints currently number some one thousand items, and at age 75, he continues to produce new works with remarkable zest and boundless energy. Jim Dine Printmaker: Leaving My Tracks explores Dine’s etchings, woodcuts, lithographs, and illustrated books from the last fifty years, drawing from the prints at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where the artist has created an archive of his life’s work. Some 160 lush full-color images and text based on conversations between the artist and MFA curator Clifford S. Ackley offer an intimate look into Dine’s deeply personal approach to his favorite subject matter. Intensely physical in execution, Dine’s prints celebrate the artist’s touch. He supplements his energetic, full-body strokes not only by hand coloring but also by collaging with nontraditional media. He may also subtract, scratching or even gouging his surfaces, sometimes with power tools. The results show his great joy in working with the thick paper and rich inks and colors, or in the artist’s words, his love for “leaving my tracks.”


About the Author

Clifford S. Ackley is Department Chair and Ruth and Carl J. Shapiro Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Patrick Murphy is Lia and William Poorvu Curatorial Research Fellow in the Department of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.