Dan Christensen

Dan Christensen (1942-2007) expanded the language of modernism. His inspirations came from various Modern sources and his idiosyncratic techniques created monumental paintings that reflect his myriad processes. Christensen went through numerous artistic transitions throughout his career. He would discover a problem, dedicate all of his time and effort to it, and just as soon as the solution had been found he would immediately pivot in a new direction to something radically different. His career can be summarized as backtracking and simultaneously moving forward, as he would often return to a previous idea and explore it until it had become something entirely new. His consistent theme was creating paintings that discussed the act of painting itself. His methods are commonly associated with Abstract Expressionism and action painting as his physical involvement in each work is apparent.  

Dan Christensen (1942-2007) was born in Cozad, Nebraska. He was represented by André Emmerich Gallery and Salander/O’Reilly Gallery before moving to Spanierman Modern in 2007. Christensen was able to enjoy the opening of a retrospective show, held by Spanierman Modern, with works spanning his forty-year-long career before his passing. He attended the Kansas City Art Institute before he moved to New York City in the 1960s. He quickly found fame when he began producing his “linear spray paintings” in 1967. These paintings were produced using a spray paint gun. They are a fascinating embodiment of the reductive abstract tendencies in 1960s American art and of the interest of the time in innovative applications of new techniques. With their powerful ribbon-like configurations and shimmering allover surface effects, these works won the attention of Greenberg, who became an enthusiastic supporter of Christensen's art. Dan Christensen had his first solo exhibition in New York in 1967. His paintings were included in the Whitney Museum of American Art’s annual exhibitions in 1967, 1969, and 1972, along with the first biennial exhibition in 1973. Christensen was specifically identified as part of the Lyrical Abstraction movement by Larry Aldrich and participated in the collective exhibition hosted by the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in 1970. His works were also featured in more than seventy-five solo exhibitions. Today his works can be found in important museum collections in the United States and Europe.