Black Ink Robe (2005)

Artist: Jim Dine
Title: Black Ink Robe
Year: 2005
Medium: Lithograph in colours
Sheet Size: 67.0 × 52.0 cm (26 3/8 × 20 1/2 in)
Edition: 200 — signed, dated and numbered
Publisher: Princess Cruises, California
Type: Limited edition lithograph

Description

Black Ink Robe (2005) presents Jim Dine's most enduring and most personal motif — the bathrobe — in one of its most chromatically explosive realisations. The robe blazes in amber, orange, red, and yellow, the gestural black brushwork that defines its structure simultaneously containing and releasing the colour beneath, the whole set against a cool mint-green ground that amplifies the warmth of the figure by contrast. There is no body inside the robe — there never is in Dine's bathrobe works — and yet the garment is entirely present, filled by the energy of its own making rather than by any human occupant.

Dine introduced the bathrobe as a motif in 1964 — famously after seeing his own robe hanging on the back of a bathroom door and recognising in it the possibility of a self-portrait that was not a self-portrait, a figure that was also an absence, a garment that was also a psyche. In the six decades since, the robe has appeared in hundreds of paintings, drawings, sculptures, and prints, each iteration exploring a different chromatic, emotional, or formal register. Black Ink Robe belongs to the warmest and most energetically gestural end of that spectrum: the black ink outlines that give the work its title are not a constraint but a liberation, the structure from which the colour erupts rather than the boundary that contains it.

Published by Princess Cruises, California in 2005 as a companion to The Bather, and printed in the same format and edition size of 200. Signed, dated and numbered by the artist. Presented framed in a black frame. Collected alongside The Bather, the two works form a natural diptych — the body and the garment, the figure and its covering, chromatic complements in warm and cool registers.

Shipping & Delivery

✔ Worldwide shipping from France
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✔ Full insurance + tracking
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FAQ — 

Is this an original Jim Dine lithograph?
Yes — an original lithograph in colours, signed, dated and numbered by the artist from an edition of 200.

What is the significance of the bathrobe in Dine's work?
Dine introduced the bathrobe motif in 1964, recognising in it the possibility of a self-portrait without a body — a garment that functions as both presence and absence, identity and its container. It has remained his most personal and most explored motif across six decades of practice.

What is the edition size?
200 impressions — the same as its companion work, The Bather (2005).

How does this work relate to The Bather?
Both works were published by Princess Cruises, California in 2005 in the same format and edition size. Together they form a natural diptych — the body and the garment, warm amber against cool grey, the figure and its covering.

Who published this work?
Princess Cruises, California — a commission connecting this work to the tradition of artist-designed luxury editions in American art.

Is the work framed?
Yes — framed in a black frame, as shown.

Do you ship internationally?
Yes — worldwide, with museum-grade packaging for framed works, full insurance, and shipment tracking.

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