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Artist
Dan Flavin (1933-1996)
Title
untitled (to Barnett Newman) four, 1971 for Dwan Gallery
Date
1971
Medium
Colored pencil, pen and ink, and graphite pencil on paper
Dimensions
Sheet: 17 5/16 × 22 1/4 in. (44 × 56.5 cm)
Credit line
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Purchase, with funds from The Norman and Rosita Winston Foundation, Inc.
Accession number
90.18
Rights and Reproductions Information
© artist or artist’s estate
Object Label
In 1971, Dan Flavin had a gallery exhibition that included four sculptures called Untitled (for Barnett Newman)—this is a drawing that documents one of the four fabricated sculptures. The group of works was a tribute to artist Barnett Newman, whose work Flavin admired. Though Flavin is widely known for his fluorescent light installations, drawing remained critically important throughout his practice. He produced quick sketches that served as studies, as well as final finished diagrams on graph paper to record his exhibitions. Unlike his sketches, for which he used a graphite pencil or ballpoint pen, Flavin’s diagrams reveal restraint and factual information about size, placement, and color.