A childhood encounter with a crow at a zoo led to a lifetime fascination with avian life for the American artist Jim Dine. This encounter with the bird was perceived by the young Dine with a mixture of fear, fascination, and a deeper understanding of his unconscious world, and from it grew a mythic symbolism for the artist, which he explores in Birds, a series of remarkable black-and-white photographs. Here, an everyday, unspectacular bird might appear to the beholder as a character of mythology, as a jester at the medieval court, as a strange messenger from a world behind the scenes. These are rich, intimate, darkly detailed images imbued with symbolism and meaning. They are also beautiful and compelling, particularly as published in this spectacular volume, which, with 36 images printed using a technique called heliogravure, and with a Japanese binding, is a truly beautiful object in itself, and reveals a new aspect of the work of American artist Jim Dine.

Limited edition of 150 copies including an original heliogravure signed and numbered by the artist