A History of Communism

Portfolio of 45 lithograph and etching prints on Zerkall 450 gsm paper with title-page and colophon in black solander box

Dimensions

Paper: 36 5/8 x 27 15/16 (93 x 71) (each)

Image: varies

Inscriptions

Signed "Jim Dine", numbered, and dated "2012" (on colophon)

Edition and proofs

10, 5 AP, 1 BAT, 4 PP, 1 MFA proof

Publisher

Alan Cristea Gallery, London

Printers and workshops

Ulrich Kuehle, Sarah Dudley, and Nina Dine at Keystone Editions, Berlin (lithograph); Julia D'Amario, Aurélie Pagès, Kathy Kuehn, and Ruth Lingen at Jim Dine Studio, Walla Walla, WA (etching); Bill Lagattuta at Jim Dine Studio (lithograph of title page)

Working period

April 2011-August 2, 2012

Printing order

For this portfolio the artist reactivated lithographic stones of the Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weißensee with images drawn between 1946 and 1989 by students of that Art Academy in the former German Democratic Republic. On top of new prints from these stones, especially made for this portfolio, the artist printed with copper plates prepared for printing with different types of etching and power-tool abrasion.

Whereabouts

Boston (MFA proof)

Essen (PP; B 41/15 1-45)

London (BM proof; 2014,7067.65.1-45)

Literature

A History of Communism; A printmaker's document, p. 224; About the Love of Printing, p. 107, fig. 115-122; Susan Tallman, Marking Marx: Jim Dine's History of Communism, in: Art in Print, volume 4, number 3 (September-October, 2014), pp. 18-21; Stephen Coppel, Modern Giant, in: British Museum Magazine, 81 (Spring/Summer 2015), pp. 48-51, here p.51