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Augusta Stylianou Gallery 
Dan Flavin (April 1, 1933, Jamaica, New York – November 29, 1996, Riverhead, New York) was an American minimalist artist famous for creating sculptural objects and installations from commercially available fluorescent light fixtures.
Flavin studied for the priesthood in Brooklyn for a brief period of time before enlisting in the United States Air Force. During military service in 1954–55, Flavin studied art through the University of Maryland Extension Program in Korea.[1] Upon his return to New York in 1956, Flavin briefly attended the Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts and studied art under Albert Urban. He later studied art history for a short time at the New School for Social Research, then moved on to Columbia University, where he studied painting and drawing.[2] From 1959, Flavin was shortly employed as a guard and elevator operator at the Museum of Modern Art, where he met Sol LeWitt, Lucy Lippard, and Robert Ryman.[3] Two years later, he married his first wife Sonja Severdija.[4] Flavin married his second wife, the artist Tracy Harris, in a ceremony at the Guggenheim Museum, in 1992.[5] Flavin died in Riverhead, New York. His estate is represented by David Zwirner, New York. Work Early work Flavin’s first works were drawings and paintings that reflected the influence of Abstract Expressionism. In 1959, he began to make assemblages and collages.[6] In the summer of 1961, while working as a guard at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, Flavin started to make sketches for sculptures that incorporated electric lights.[7] The first works to incorporate electric light were his "Icons" series: eight colored square box-forms, constructed by the artist and his then-wife Sonja: these were fluorescent tubes with incandescent bulbs attached to their sides, and sometimes beveled edges. One of these icons was dedicated to Flavin's twin brother David, who died of polio in 1962.[8] " Mature work The "Diagonal of Personal Ecstasy (the Diagonal of May 25, 1963)," completed in 1963, was Flavin's first mature work; it marks the beginning of the artist's exclusive use of fluorescent light as a medium. In the decades that followed, he continued to use fluorescent structures to explore color, light and sculptural space, in works that filled gallery interiors. These structures cast both light and an eerily-colored shade, while taking a variety of forms, including "corner pieces", "barriers," and "corridors." Most of Flavin's works were untitled, followed by a dedication in parenthesis to friends, artists, critics and others: the most famous of these include his "Monuments to V. Tatlin," an homage to the Russian constructivist sculptor Vladimir Tatlin, which he continued to work on between 1964 and 1990. By 1968, Flavin had developed his sculptures into room-size environments of light. That year, he outlined an entire gallery in ultraviolet light at Documenta 4 in Kassel, Germany. Additional sites for his architectural “interventions” became the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin (1996), and the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas (2000). In 1992, Flavin’s original conception for a 1971 piece was fully realized in a site-specific installation that filled the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum's entire rotunda on the occasion of the museum’s reopening. His last artwork was a site-specific work at Santa Maria Annunciata in Chiesa Rossa, Milan, Italy. The 1930s church was designed by Giovanni Muzio. The design for the piece was completed two days before Flavin's death on November 29, 1996. Its installation was completed one year later with the assistance of the Dia Center for the Arts and Fondazione Prada.[9] The Menil Collection in Houston, Texas states that in 1990 Dominique de Menil approached Flavin to create a permanent, site-specific installation at Richmond Hall. Just two days before his death in November 1996 Flavin completed the design for the space. The artist’s studio completed the work.[10] Recognition In 1983, the Dia Center for the Arts opened the Dan Flavin Art Institute in Bridgehampton, New York, a permanent exhibition of his works, designed by the artist in a converted firehouse.[11] In 2004, Flavin's work Untitled ("monument" for V. Tatlin)' (1964-1965) was sold for $735,500 at Christie's, New York. Exhibitions Flavin's first one-person exhibition using only fluorescent light opened at the Green Gallery in 1964. Two years later, his first European show opened at Rudolf Zwirner's gallery in Cologne, Germany. The first major retrospective of Flavin’s work was organized by the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa in 1969. In 1973 the Saint Louis Art Museum presented concurrent exhibitions of his works on paper and fluorescent sculptures. Among Flavin’s many significant one-person exhibitions in Europe were shows at the Kunstmuseum Basel and Kunsthalle Basel (1975), the Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden (1989), and the Städtische Galerie im Städel, Frankfurt (1993). In the late 1970s, he began a partnership with the Dia Art Foundation that resulted in the making of several permanent site-specific installations and led most recently to the organization of the traveling exhibition, Dan Flavin: A Retrospective (2004–2007).[12] Since 2010, Dan Flavins's estate has been represented by David Zwirner. During his life, he was represented primarily by the Green Gallery, Kornblee Gallery, Dwan Gallery, John Weber Gallery, Leo Castelli Gallery, and PaceWildenstein. Sculptures in collections[13][14] United States Arizona * untitled (in memory of "Sandy" Calder) V 1/5, 1977, Private Collector, Scottsdale California * untitled (to Marianne), 1970, San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla Colorado * untitled (for A. C.), 1992, Denver Art Museum, Denver District of Columbia * untitled, 1980, Administered by United States General Services Administration, Art-in-Architecture Program, Washington Illinois * untitled (monument for V. Tatlin), 1970, Private Collector, Chicago Iowa * untitled (for Ellen), Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines Massachusetts * Barbara Roses, 1962–1965, Smith College, Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton Michigan * "monument" for V. Tatlin, 1969, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit Minnesota * untitled, 1963, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis Nebraska * untitled, 1964, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden, Lincoln New Hampshire * untitled (To Elita and her baby, Cintra), 1970, Dartmouth College, Hood Museum of Art, Hanover New York * gold, pink and red, red 2/3, 1964, Dia Art Foundation, Beacon North Carolina * untitled, 1971, Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte Ohio * untitled (to Janie Lee) one, 1971, Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus Oregon * untitled (To Donna) II , 1971, Portland Art Museum Texas * alternate diagonals of March 2, 1964 (to Don Judd) 2/3, 1964, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas Washington * untitled (To Donna), 1973, Private Collector, Seattle
Canada * the alternate diagonals of March 2, 1964 (To Don Judd), 1964, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Ontario France * "monument" for V. Tatlin, 1975, Musee National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges-Pompidou, Paris United Kingdom * "monument" to V. Tatlin, 1975, Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, Scotland
* icon I (the heart) (to the light of Sean McGovern which blesses everyone), 1961
1. ^ http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/show-full/bio/?artist_name=Dan%20Flavin&page=1&f=Name&cr=3
Govan, Michael and Bell, Tiffany. "Dan Flavin: The Complete Lights, 1961-1996." Yale University Press, New Haven, CT. 2004. ==--==--==
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