Red Design for Satin Heart, 1968

This edition was created as part of Jim Dine's illustrations for his planned stage adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. The work combines Dine’s fascination with familiar, everyday forms with bold colour and expressive, painterly marks, drawing on the influences of Dada assemblage, Abstract Expressionism and collage.

The heart is one of Dine’s most recognizable motifs, and Red Design for Satin Heart is among the earliest appearances of the heart in his work. Although its connection to Wilde’s story remains open to interpretation, the motif became a defining element of Dine’s visual language. Dine’s The Picture of Dorian Gray series is represented in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, both in New York.