Dan Flavin valuation
Made art from shop-bought fluorescent tubes, turning light, colour and corners into sculpture.
Dan Flavin was born in Jamaica, New York, in 1933 and studied for the priesthood before joining the United States Air Force, where he trained as a meteorological technician and took art classes in Korea.
What a work by Dan Flavin is worth
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Bio
Dan Flavin was born in Jamaica, New York, in 1933 and studied for the priesthood before joining the United States Air Force, where he trained as a meteorological technician and took art classes in Korea. Back in New York he studied briefly at the Hans Hofmann School and at Columbia, and worked as a mail clerk at the Guggenheim and a guard at the Museum of Modern Art, where he met Sol LeWitt and Robert Ryman. In 1961 he began making works with electric light, the Icons, and from 1963 he used only commercially available fluorescent tubes and fixtures in standard colours and lengths, arranged on walls, across corners and through whole rooms. His series 'monument' for V. Tatlin, fifty works made between 1964 and 1990, is among the defining works of Minimalism. He died in Riverhead, New York, in 1996.
A Flavin is defined by its certificate. Each work exists as a design issued in a stated edition with a signed certificate, and the tubes and fixtures themselves are replaceable. Buyers check the certificate, the edition number, the fixtures and the history of the work through his galleries or his estate. Drawings and prints also appear.
The Icons, Tatlin and Richmond Hall
His last work, completed two days before his death, was the design for a permanent installation at Richmond Hall in Houston for the Menil Collection.
The Dan Flavin Art Institute at Bridgehampton, New York, run by the Dia Art Foundation, opened in 1983 in a former firehouse.
Whitebank Fine Art is an art advisory and gallery, not an auction house, and is not affiliated with any auction house or with the artist, their estate or their representatives. This page describes the range we advise on. Nothing here is investment advice.
