Dan Flavin (b. 1933, New York City, d. 1996, Riberheard, NY) is known for his sculptures and installations made of light that use commercially available fluorescent fixtures. In 1961 he had his first solo exhibition at the Judson Gallery, New York. Later that year he began experimenting with electric light in a series of works called “icons,” which led him to his first work made solely of fluorescent light, the diagonal of May 25, 1963 (to Constantin Brancusi) (1963). Major exhibitions of Flavin’s work include those at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1967); the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (1969); and the Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden (1989). In 2004 the Dia Art Foundation organized a traveling retrospective in association with the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. In 1983 Dia opened the Dan Flavin Art Institute, a permanent exhibition designed by the artist in a former firehouse and Baptist church in Bridgehampton, New York. Flavin’s work is in the collection of The Kunsthalle Basel; the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark; the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and many major US institutions.