Dan Christensen (1942–2007) is widely recognized as one of America’s foremost color abstractionists. A master innovator at the center of important developments in American abstract painting, he was a key figure in "Post-Painterly Abstraction," constantly inventing new visual languages such as his acclaimed "ribbon" and "loop" paintings, and credited with helping to “save” painting at a time when many in the art world were proclaiming its premature “death.” Born in Cozad, Nebraska, he achieved spectacular success early in his career, including two Whitney Biennials before the age of 26 and major awards. The great critic Clement Greenberg anointed him in 1990 as “one of the painters on whom the course of American art depends.”
The work Untitled, 1988 is a prime example of his later Spray series (1988–1994). This compelling horizontal composition showcases Christensen’s remarkable fluency with color and form. In this work, Christensen uses a spray gun to create soft, shimmering, and deliberately blurred lines that loop and swirl across the canvas, reminiscent of his earliest acclaimed works when his use of the spray gun as an alternative way of applying paint to a canvas was heralded as being as innovatively pioneering as Pollock’s splatters and drips before him. The overall effect of the colored lines against the background continues his exploration of the Color Field movement's emphasis on luminous color.
Dan Christensen, Bend Two, 1978, acrylic on canvas, 53 x 81 in
Dan Christensen, Blue Clover (detail), 1990, acrylic on canvas, 46.5 x 78.5 in
Dan Christensen, Untitled, 1978, acrylic on canvas, 57 x 59 x 1 in
The composition embodies what Christensen described as "the harmonious turbulence of the universe," with the lines appearing to spin, pulse, or float in a cosmic atmosphere. This work is a testament to the artist's continuous experimentation with technique and his mastery of manipulating paint to create vibrant, energetic, and visually complex abstract compositions.
Christensen’s work is included in numerous public collections, including the Guggenheim, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Art Institute of Chicago, among many others.
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