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Dan Christensen

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See also:Daniel Christensen
Dan Christensen
Born(1942-10-06)October 6, 1942
Cozad, Nebraska
DiedJanuary 20, 2007(2007-01-20)(aged 64)
Easthampton, New York
NationalityAmerican
EducationKansas City Art Institute,University of Indiana
Known forAbstract painting
MovementAbstract Expressionism,Post-minimalism,Color Field painting,Lyrical Abstraction
Awards1969Guggenheim fellowship

Dan Christensen,(October 6, 1942 – January 20, 2007) was an Americanabstract painter He is best known for paintings that relate toLyrical Abstraction,[1]Color field painting,andAbstract expressionism.[2]

Christensen was born inCozad, Nebraska,and died inEasthampton, New York.His early work from 1965-1966 was related toMinimalism.A graduate of theKansas City Art Institute,class of 1964, where he studied alongsideRonnie LandfieldandSherron Francis,Dan Christensen moved toNew York Cityfrom the Mid-West during the late summer of 1965. Christensen was represented by several influential galleries including the Andre Emmerich Gallery, the Salander/O'Reilly Gallery and various others throughout the United States and Europe. He has had more than seventy-five solo exhibitions and his work has been included in hundreds of group exhibitions. His paintings are in important museum collections throughout theUnited StatesandEurope.

Art world beginnings

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Dan Christensen arrived inNew York Cityin the summer of 1965 from the Mid-West, with the purpose of establishing himself as an important contemporary abstract painter. With his friend from Iowa - the painter David Wagner, he rented aloftonGreat Jones Streetinlower Manhattan.After several months of experimenting on new abstract paintings with interlocking rectangular "L" shapes in shades of tan, grey, ochre and brown that resembled jigsaw puzzles in oil paint, he began to useacrylic paint.Christensen began painting the series of abstract paintings for which he became first known - hisMinimal"Bar" paintings in the spring of 1966. After Dave Wagner returned to Iowa in March 1966, his friend the painterRonnie Landfieldshared his Great Jones Street loft with him until the early winter of 1967.[3]

Dan Christensen was part of a large circle of young artists who had come toManhattanduring the 1960s.Kenneth Showell,Peter Young,Michael Steiner,Ronnie Landfield,Dick Anderson, his brother Don Christensen,Peter Reginato,Carlos Villa,David R. Prentice,James Monte, Frosty Myers, Tex Wray,Larry Zox,Larry Poons,Robert Povlich,Neil Williams (artist),Carl Gliko, Billy Hoffman, Francine Tint,Lee Lozano,Pat Lipsky,John Griefen,Brice Marden,John Chamberlain,Donald Judd,Frank Stella,Carl Andre,Dan Graham,Robert Smithson,Robert Rauschenberg,Andy Warhol,Kenneth Noland,Clement Greenberg,Bob Neuwirth,Joseph Kosuth,Mark di Suvero,Sherron Francis,Brigid Berlin,Lawrence Weiner,Rosemarie Castoro,Marjorie Strider,Dorothea Rockburne,Colette,andMarisolwere just a few of the artists he saw regularly atMax's Kansas City— the favorite place for artists inNew York Cityduring the 1960s.[4]

Early career

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In the late fall of 1966 the art dealerRichard Bellamyvisited the Great Jones Street loft and began to represent Dan Christensen's work. Bellamy invited Christensen to exhibit his paintings at the Noah Goldowsky Gallery in the late spring of 1967. Dorothy Herzka co-curated a group exhibition that included Dan Christensen,Ronnie Landfield,Kenneth Showell, and Peter Gourfain in February 1967 at the Bianchini Gallery on W. 57th Street inManhattan.All of those four painters were invited to be included in theWhitney Museum of American Art's 1967 Annual exhibition. In the late spring of 1967 Dan Christensen began painting with spray guns and produced his first "linear spray paintings," for which he became famous. By 1968 he began to exhibit his paintings in important art galleries from New York toCaliforniaand worldwide. In the late 1960s he participated in several important exhibitions that traveled throughout the United States, including theLyrical AbstractionExhibition that originated at theAldrich Contemporary Art Museum.[5]During the remainder of the 1960s and throughout the 1970s Christensen regularly exhibited his paintings at theAndré EmmerichGallery,[6]the Noah Goldowsky Gallery inNew York City,the Rolf Ricke Gallery inW. Germany,theNicholas Wilder GalleryinLos Angeles,[7]and the Meredith Long Gallery both inHoustonTexas,andNew York City.

Dan Christensen's paintings were included in theWhitney Museum of American Art's annual exhibition's in 1967, 1968 and 1969 and in the first biennial exhibition in 1973. During the late 1960s and 1970s Dan Christensen's paintings were included in numerous group exhibitions, in influential galleries and museums. His work was included in several important articles in the media about the newest generation of American artists. His work was discussed and reviewed inThe New York Times,Newsweek,Artforum,Art in America,Art News,and many other periodicals. In 1968 he was awarded aNational Endowment for the ArtsGrant and he was awarded a 1969Guggenheim fellowship.[8]

Late career

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Christensen's abstract paintings changed and evolved throughout his career. During the final ten years of his life he moved with his family toEast Hampton, New YorkfromManhattan.From November 2001 through February 2002 Christensen had a retrospective exhibition at TheButler Institute of American ArtinYoungstown, Ohio;and shows of his paintings in galleries inBoca Raton, Florida,Houston, Texas,Santa Fe, New Mexico,New York Cityand in 2007 he had a retrospective exhibition at the Spanierman Gallery inManhattan.His paintings are in the permanent collections of TheWhitney Museum of American Art,TheMuseum of Modern Art,[9]theSolomon R. Guggenheim Museum,theMetropolitan Museum of Art,inNew York City,theMuseum of Fine Arts, Boston,theHirshhorn Museum and Sculpture GardenWashington, DC.,theChicago Art Institute,theNelson-Atkins MuseumKansas City, Missouri,Boca Raton Museum of Artand dozens of others.

Recent

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On January 18, 2007 Dan Christensen enjoyed the opening of an important survey exhibition of paintings selected from his long painting career, spanning the years from 1966 until 2007 at the Spanierman Gallery on E. 58th Street inManhattan. After enduringPolymyositisfor nearly nineteen years, Dan Christensen died on Saturday, January 20, 2007. He is survived by his wife Elaine Grove Christensen (sculptor & actress), and his three sons: Moses, James (of the Hip Hop group Junk Science, currently signed toDefinitive Juxrecords) and William, his brother Don and his two sisters Marilyn and Kay.

References

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  1. ^Ashton, Dore. Young Abstract Painters: Right On! Arts v. 44, n. 4, February, 1970, pp. 31-35.
  2. ^[1]Archived2010-07-03 at theWayback Machineretrieved June 2, 2010
  3. ^Exhibition Catalogue,Ronnie Landfield: Paintings From Five Decades,TheButler Institute of American Art,Seeking the Miraculous,pp.5-6ISBN1-882790-50-2
  4. ^High on Rebellion: Inside the Underground atMax's Kansas City,by Yvonne Sewall-Ruskin, foreword byLou Reed,Thunder's Mouth Press NYC. 1998, pp.2-105
  5. ^The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art,Lyrical Abstraction,exhibition: April 5 through June 7, 1970,Statement of the exhibition
  6. ^"Andre Emmerich Gallery records and Andre Emmerich papers, 1930-2008".Research collections.Archives of American Art.2011.Retrieved17 Jun2011.
  7. ^"Nicholas Wilder, 51, Artist and Art Dealer (Published 1989)".The New York Times.Archivedfrom the original on 2023-05-12.
  8. ^"list of Guggenheim fellows".Archived fromthe originalon 2008-05-16.Retrieved2008-05-08.
  9. ^,MoMA
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