Dan Flavin will be forever known for creating installations out of fluorescent lights. Some were simple: a single tube placed diagonally along a wall. Others were elaborate: constructions that transformed a room.
And while Flavin, who died in 1996, was often credited with melding Minimalism and architecture in a way no one had before him, there was a whole other side to him that few knew existed. He was an avid draftsman, sketching throughout his life. Early on there were Abstract Expressionist watercolors. He also created portraits and landscapes and, as would be expected, drawings as studies for his light installations.
Flavin collected drawings too, including works by Hudson River School artists like John Frederick Kensett, Jasper Francis Cropsey and Sanford Robinson Gifford, along with examples of works on paper by early-19th-century Japanese artists like Hokusai and 20th-century European masters like Mondrian and George Grosz. Flavin also exchanged works with Minimalist colleagues like Donald Judd and Sol LeWitt.
Isabelle Dervaux, the curator of modern and contemporary drawings at the Morgan Library & Museum, has gathered these works together for the first time in “Dan Flavin: Drawing,” an exhibition that will be at the Morgan from Feb. 17 through July 1. The show will include more than 100 drawings by Flavin, along with examples of works on paper that he collected.
“It’s an evocation of his world,” said William M. Griswold, the Morgan’s director, in a telephone interview. “It’s totally unexpected; there is everything from gestural studies from the 1950s and ’60s to pastels of sailboats on the Hudson River.”
Ms. Dervaux said she conceived of the show in 2004 when she saw the Flavin retrospective at the National Gallery of Art in Washington. “They had a room of different types of drawings that I wasn’t aware existed,” she said.
An investigation turned up a wealth of drawings never seen by the public.
“He made different types of drawings, but very few were made to be sold,” Ms. Dervaux said. “He mostly made them for himself.”
Living in Wainscott and Garrison, both New York hamlets near the water, Flavin often drew the surrounding landscape, whether it was the Hudson Valley or the waters off Long Island. He also made small portraits and kept about 20 volumes of journals. Only one journal, dated 1962-63, has been examined, Ms. Dervaux said. In it he writes repeatedly about sketching.
“He liked all kinds of things,” Ms. Dervaux said. “American glass, Stickley furniture, Native American crafts and various kinds of pottery.”
“For a Minimalist,” she added, “he lived in a cluttered environment.”
PUBLIC ART IS COMING TO THE CAPITAL
Washington may be known for its outstanding museums, but when it comes to public art the capital has been lagging behind other American cities. Now Mayor Vincent C. Gray and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities are introducing 5x5, a program that will put temporary public art installations throughout Washington. Five curators have each received $100,000 to create 25 projects. Each curator has selected five artists or artistic collaborative groups to work with. The installations are timed to coincide with the annual Cherry Blossom Festival, March 20 to April 27, when more than a million people from around the world descend on the capital. Projects can be of various durations as long as they do not exceed four months.
“We’re trying to get people off the Federal Mall and into the community,” said Lionell Thomas, executive director of the DC Commission. “This is an opportunity to stimulate cultural exchange, which the Cherry Blossom Festival was originally meant to do.”
Though details of the projects are sketchy, Amy Lipton, one of the curators, said all five artists she had chosen were from New York, and each creates installations that concern the environment. “Years ago artists were dealing more with every other social and political issue,” Ms. Lipton said, “but now there are more artists addressing subjects like climate change and habitat.” One such artist, Natalie Jeremijenko, is installing a tree made of rubber tubing that will cross a busy intersection between Connecticut Avenue and Q Street. The Malaysian-born artist Tattfoo Tan is making a giant labyrinth out of weeds in Yards Park, a new waterfront space on the Anacostia River just south of Capitol Hill. “It’s his comment on immigration,” Ms. Lipton said. “Weeds are plants that nobody wants and come from somewhere else. Yet they add diversity.”
Molly Donovan, a curator at the National Gallery of Art who served on the panel that chose the project’s curators, said she hoped that this initiative would encourage other public art around the city. “It’s long overdue,” she said.
TURRELL BRIGHTENS SARASOTA
At the Venice Biennale last summer crowds lined up to see James Turrell’s light installation. Mr. Turrell’s artworks are showing up in unexpected places around the United States, where they are also popular draws.
For the winter solstice on Thursday, the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota opened the only one of Mr. Turrell’s Skyspace works to be exhibited in Florida, and it is his largest.
With exteriors that often resemble concrete bunkers, Mr. Turrell’s Skyspaces are chapel-like domed structures where visitors can sit quietly and experience a magically changing environment of light and space, carefully created by concealed computer-programmed LED and incandescent lights that gently bathe the walls in color.
The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Ark., which opened last month, features a Skyspace by Mr. Turrell that is nestled in the campus landscape along one of its many walking trails.
At the Ringling, the Skyspace is in a courtyard and measures more than 3,000 square feet.
“This project has been in the works for 10 years,” said Matthew McLendon, the Ringling’s associate curator of modern and contemporary art. “We’re hoping it will bring new audiences to the museum. It’s a place that gives us permission to sit and perhaps contemplate outside of ourselves, and we don’t get to do that much in this Twitter, Facebook, 21st-century existence.”