Peoria - From the "Oo La La" portfolio - collaboration with Ron Padgett

Jim Dine

The late 1960s and early 70s saw Dine’s interest in literary pursuits grow: he illustrated and published a book of his own poetry entitled Welcome Home Lovebirds (Trigram Press, 1969), and he provided drawings and photographs for the publications of Padgett and other New York School poets: Ron Padgett’s translation of Apollinaire’s "Le Poète Assassiné” (Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1968), Ron Padgett and Tom Clark’s Bun (Angel Hair, 1968), and Fragment, by Ted Berrigan (Cape Goliard Press, London 1969). Cape Golliard also published a stylish monograph in 1970 reproducing photographs and drawings titled "The Adventures of Mr and Mrs Jim and Ron".

In 1966, police raided a Jim Dine exhibition in London at the Robert Fraser Gallery. Fraser was charged under the Obscene Publications act and Dine was found to be indecent. After a meteoric rise to artistic prominence in New York, Dine had tired of the city’s intense art scene, and this incident was the final straw. He moved with his family to London in 1967 and began producing work at Petersburg Press, where he would become a longtime collaborator.

As a student, Dine had cited the great American poets, Ron Padgett, Robert Creeley and Ted Berrigan, of the New York School as early inspirations, and in London, he eagerly took the opportunity to work with Padgett at Petersburg Press.