Daniel Nicholas Flavin Jr, known as Dan Flavin, was born in New York in 1933. In 1953 he joined the air force and trained as a meteorologist. In 1956 he studied drawing and painting under Hans Hofmann. He also studied art history at the New School for Social Research. A year later he studied at Columbia University in New York, attending art history lectures by Meyer Schapiro. From 1959 to 1960 he worked as a guard and elevator operator in the Museum of Modern Art, where he became acquainted with Sol LeWitt and other artists. At the same time, he devoted himself increasingly to his artistic activities. He had his first solo show in the Judson Gallery in New York in 1961. The following year he met Donald Judd. In 1964 he exhibited his works with electric light for the first time. Installations and neon tubes became his trademarks. In 1966 he moved to Lake Valhalla, and in 1968 he was represented at documenta 4 in Kassel. He was appointed a guest professor at the University of Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 1973. In 1981 he moved to Long Island, where he died in Riverhead in 1996.
