THE MORGAN LIBRARY & MUSEUM TO HOLD FIRST RETROSPECTIVE EXHIBITION OF DRAWINGS BY DAN FLAVIN

Press release date: 
Monday, December 5, 2011

Best known for his groundbreaking fluorescent light installations, Dan Flavin (1933-1996) was also an avid draftsman and collector of drawings. Throughout his career, the self-taught artist turned to drawing to plan his constructions and installations, as well as to sketch from nature in the most traditional fashion. He also enthusiastically acquired drawings by artists of diverse styles and backgrounds with whom he felt affinities.

Now, for the first time, the central role that drawing played in Flavin’s art will be explored in a major exhibition at The Morgan Library & Museum, opening on February 17, 2012. The show includes more than one hundred drawings by the artist—from early abstract expressionist watercolors of the 1950s and portraits and landscape sketches, to studies for his seminal light installations and late pastels of sailboats. In addition, the exhibition will feature nearly fifty works from Flavin’s personal collection of drawings, including nineteenth-century American landscapes by Hudson River School artists, Japanese drawings, and twentieth-century works by artists such as Piet Mondrian, Donald Judd, and Sol LeWitt. The exhibition will be on view through July 1, 2012.

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