The Picture of Dorian Gray. (Announcement Poster)
Dine, Jim
London. Petersburg Press. 1968
'The Picture of Dorian Gray' poster / announcement for the Petersburg Press edition by Jim Dine.
The poster features Dine's central image of a large red bleeding or melting heart with title above in black on a pink background. When folded the verso of the poster serves as the announcement for the book and details the edition, three formats (with varying numbers of lithographs and etchings) in three different bindings of red velvet, green velvet or snakeskin) for Jim Dine's illustrated book of Robert Kidd's stage adaptation of Oscar Wilde's novel. All of Dine's original colour lithographs are reproduced on the back of the poster in monochrome.
First published in shortened form in 1890 in Lippincott's Magazine, the novel was considerably expanded by Wilde for publication in book form. It established Wilde as a leading writer and brought him the first taste of the notoriety that was to cause his downfall some four years later. The theme of a young man selling his soul for eternal youth was not new, as Wilde admitted, but in the form he now gave it - the languid and decadent London circle of writers, artists and aesthetes - it excited considerable speculation about Wilde himself and his young friend and model for Dorian, the poet John Gray. The book throws interesting light on that side of Wilde's character before the advent of Lord Alfred Douglas in 1893. The Scottish theatre director Robert Kidd, in the late 1960s, had developed an adaptation of Wilde's book for the stage to star James Fox. Although the production never saw light, the artist Jim Dine had been commissioned to design the poster and his inspired creations, the sole remaining artefacts of the prodcution, were published by the Petersburg Press.
The poster features Dine's central image of a large red bleeding or melting heart with title above in black on a pink background. When folded the verso of the poster serves as the announcement for the book and details the edition, three formats (with varying numbers of lithographs and etchings) in three different bindings of red velvet, green velvet or snakeskin) for Jim Dine's illustrated book of Robert Kidd's stage adaptation of Oscar Wilde's novel. All of Dine's original colour lithographs are reproduced on the back of the poster in monochrome.
First published in shortened form in 1890 in Lippincott's Magazine, the novel was considerably expanded by Wilde for publication in book form. It established Wilde as a leading writer and brought him the first taste of the notoriety that was to cause his downfall some four years later. The theme of a young man selling his soul for eternal youth was not new, as Wilde admitted, but in the form he now gave it - the languid and decadent London circle of writers, artists and aesthetes - it excited considerable speculation about Wilde himself and his young friend and model for Dorian, the poet John Gray. The book throws interesting light on that side of Wilde's character before the advent of Lord Alfred Douglas in 1893. The Scottish theatre director Robert Kidd, in the late 1960s, had developed an adaptation of Wilde's book for the stage to star James Fox. Although the production never saw light, the artist Jim Dine had been commissioned to design the poster and his inspired creations, the sole remaining artefacts of the prodcution, were published by the Petersburg Press.
Single sheet. (745 x 555 mm unfolded). Colour image recto, monochrome images and printed text verso, the sheet folded as issued.
#48613
