Hearts have been a consistent motif throughout Jim Dine’s long career, finding their way into his paintings, prints, and sculptures. For Dine, hearts represent a “template for emotions, [...] a landscape for everything.” Like his fellow Pop artists, such as Warhol and Oldenburg, Dine is interested in common forms and everyday objects, both as subject matter and material. Viewed in the midst of the pandemic, Dine’s black heart is an appropriate symbol of the sickness and death that has taken the lives of 145,000 Americans, and counting.

Dine is a Pop and Neo-Dada artist, as well as a pioneer of New York's "Happenings" performance art movement in the 1960s. He studied at the University of Cincinnati during his senior year of high school, later earning a BFA at Ohio University, Athens, OH, before moving to New York In 1957. Since relocating, Dine has shown in over 300 solo exhibitions at institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia; Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain, among others. His work exists in many major public collections, including those of the Tate, Museum of Modern Art, and the Centre Georges Pompidou, among others.

Dine's work has been recognized by numerous awards and honors, including a recent appointment to the French Legion of Honor and an earlier election to the National Academy of Design as a full Academician, and were chosen for inclusion in the 1964 Venice Biennale and 1973 Whitney Biennial. He has served residencies at University of South Florida, Tampa, FL; Dartmouth University, Hanover, NH; Williams College, Williamstown, MA. He has been a resident of Paris for the past decade, and in 2016 made a major gift of paintings and sculpture to the Pompidou. Dine also lives and works in Göttingen, Germany, and Walla Walla, Washington.