Background

Dan Christensen was born on October 6, 1942, in Cozad, Nebraska, United States. He was a son of William Milo and Mabel Rosse Christensen who lived on a farm. Dan’s father worked as a truck driver.

Christensen made a decision to become an artist when he discovered Jackson Pollock’s art during his trip to Denver.

Dan has a brother-namesake and two sisters Marilyn David and Kay Remus.

Education

Dan Christensen received his general education at the North Platte High School in Nebraska which he finished in 1960. Then, he spent one year at the Chadron State College and later changed it to the Kansas City Art Institute. Christensen obtained his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1964.

Career

Dan Christensen began his professional artistic journey in New York City where he came in 1965. To promote himself as a modern abstract painter, he rented a studio on Great Jones Street with his friend, the painter David Wagner. During this period, the young artist experimented with materials and painting technics.

In the spring of 1966, Christensen created the minimal Bar series which provided him with first acclaim and first supporters, among whom were an art critic Clement Greenberg and an art dealer Richard Bellamy. Due to the latter, Christensen had his debut solo exhibition in 1967 at the Noah Goldowsky Gallery in New York City.

The same year, Dan Christensen presented his artwork at the group show at the Bianchini Gallery along with Ronnie Landfield, Kenneth Showell and Peter Gourfain and was invited to participate in the Whitney Museum of American Art's Annual exhibition.

He started to use the spray paint gun and elaborated his first linear spray paintings. By 1968, Dan Christensen became a regular participant of multiple important exhibitions throughout the United States, from the art galleries in New York City to California, and around the world. As an example, he demonstrated his pieces of art the Lyrical Abstraction Exhibition held at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut and at two more Whitney Museum of American Art's Annual exhibitions of 1968-1969.

The second personal show of his art took place in 1969 at the Andre Emmerich Gallery.

During the 1970s, Dan Christensen continued to satisfy the public with his artworks. So, in 1973, he was included in his debut biennial exhibition.

The subsequent years, Christensen developed his skills and evolved his artistic style.

In 2001, Dan Christensen held his first major retrospective organized at the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio. During this time, he had several shows in Florida, Houston, Texas, Santa Fe and New Mexico.

The last show of the artist took place six years later at the Spanierman Gallery of New York City on January 18.

Achievements

• Dan Christensen was an accomplished artist whose spray linear paintings are widely recognized in the United States and are known in the whole world.
  
  From the beginning of his long and fruitful career, the artist collected many prestigious grants and awards, including the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation grant, the National Endowment for the Arts grant, the Guggenheim fellowship and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant. Moreover, his art and personality were featured in various periodicals such as The New York Times, Newsweek, Artforum, Art in America, Art News and others.
  
  Christensen’s pieces of art can be found in different public collection of well-known art galleries and museums, like the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Chicago Art Institute, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, the Nelson-Atkins Museum, the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, University of Nebraska, the Ludwig Collection in the Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne, Germany among others.

Works

More photos

• painting

  • Chevade

  • Veeda

  • Dromos

  • PR

  • Pavo

  • Kaitos

  • April Blue

  • Untitled

  • Hornet

  • Ray

  • Untitled IV

  • Crayola

  • Bass Casio

  • Metal-Yellow

  • Tour de France

  • Jivaro I

  • Street Dancer

  • Shale

  • Sabu

  • Troubadour

  • Mo' Blues

  • Yellow Bumper

  • Untitled

  • Swing Street

  • Trooper

  • TDB

  • Tristan

  • Nexx Central Revisited

  • Bajo Sexto

  • Serpens

  • Amino Royale

  • Swing Low

  • New Morning

  • Nathans Diamond

  • Grus

  • TBD

  • Atlantic Champagne

  • Tsara

  • Shoxa

  • Untitled

  • Crossbreed II

  • Kings Point

  • Blue Baleen

  • Crux

  • American Archer

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• "Dan Christensen is one of the painters on whom the course of American art depends." Clement Greenberg, art critic

Connections

Dan Christensen was married to Elaine Grove. The family produced three children, all boys, named Moses Michael Lindebak, William Daniel and James Luther Christensen.

Father:

William Milo Christensen

Mother:

Mabel Rosse Christensen

Spouse:

Elaine Grove

Son:

Moses Michael Lindebak

Son:

William Daniel Christensen

Son:

James Luther Christensen

colleague:

Richard Bellamy

colleague:

Clement Greenberg

References

• Dan Christensen: Forty Years of Painting
  2009
• Dan Christensen: The Stain Paintings, 1976-1988
  2011
• Dan Christensen: The Early Sprays 1967-1969
  2012