Among America’s leading abstract painters, Dan Christensen was devoted over the course of 40 years to exploring the limits, range, and possibilities of paint and pictorial form. Although his art belongs within the category defined by the influential art critic Clement Greenberg as Color Field or Post-Painterly Abstraction, he both carried on the legacy of this approach while stepping outside of it through drawing from a wide variety of Modernist sources using many idiosyncratic techniques, and employing methods more commonly associated with the action painting techniques of Abstract Expressionism. The result is a distinctive body of work that is original, surprising, and filled with joy, exuberance, and pleasure in the act of painting.

Born in Cozad, Nebraska in 1942, the son of a farmer and truck driver, Christensen chose to become an artist when, as a teenager, he saw the work of Jackson Pollock on a trip to Denver. After receiving his B.F.A. degree from the Kansas City Art Institute, Missouri in 1964, he moved to New York City. His “spray loop” paintings, produced by using a spray paint gun, were 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.

Christensen had his first solo exhibition in New York in 1967. Two years later he was given his first one-person show at the Andre Emmerich Gallery, joining this important showcase for color-field painting where works by artists such as Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, and Helen Frankenthaler were also shown. Christensen soon started to be invited to participate in major museum shows, including the Whitney Annuals in New York and the Corcoran Gallery’s Biennials in Washington, D.C. From the 1970s until his death in 2007, Christensen was unrelenting in his exploration of new techniques as well as in his return in new ways to treat forms that had held his attention in the past.

In 2001 Christensen’s unique approach to line and shape was highlighted in the survey of his art held at The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio. He received several awards, including a National Endowment for the Arts Grant, 1968; Theodoran Award, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1969; Gottlieb Foundation Grant, 1986; and Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, 1992. His art is included in many important public collections, including Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art, St. Joseph, Missouri; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York; Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada; The Art Institute of Chicago; The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio; The Dayton Art Institute, Ohio; Denver Art Museum; Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Greenville County Museum of Art, South Carolina; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Indianapolis Museum of Art; Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York; Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri; Robert Rowan Collection, Pasadena, California; Seattle Art Museum, Washington; Sheldon Museum of Art, University of Nebraska-Lincoln; St. Louis Art Museum, Missouri; Telfair Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia; Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio; Ludwig Collection, Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne, Germany; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Christensen, who began visiting eastern Long Island in the 1960s, lived in East Hampton until his death in 2007.

RC/ LNP
©The essay herein is the property of Spanierman Gallery LLC and is copyrighted by Spanierman Gallery LLC and may not be reproduced in whole or in part, without written permission from Spanierman Gallery LLC nor shown or communicated to anyone without due credit being given to Spanierman Gallery LLC.
If you wish further information, please email info@spanierman.com

The Museum of Nebraska Art holds two paintings by Dan Christensen.