DAN FLAVIN | On No. 4 of June 16, 1964

John Weber Gallery, New York
Collection of Joseph E. Seagram & Sons, Inc., New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts; Vancouver Art Gallery; Calgary, The Nickle Arts Museum; New York, Seagram Building; Ontario, London Regional Art Gallery, Drawings by Sculptors: Two Decades of Non-Objective Art in the Seagram Collection, May 1984 - June 1985, p. 29, illustrated
New York, Dominique Lévy Gallery, Drawing Then: Innovation and Influence in American Drawings of the Sixties, January - March 2016

This work is in excellent condition overall. The sheet is hinged on the reverse to the backing board at the top edge. Upon close inspection, there is some minor scattered dust accumulation to the surface. Framed under Plexiglas.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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“The lit tubes are intense and very definite. They are very much a particular visible state, a phenomenon. The singleness of isolation phenomena is new to art and highly interesting.” Donald Judd Exceptionally rare within the artist’s oeuvre, Dan Flavin’s On No. 4 of June 16, 1964 is a seminal early work that captures the genesis of the progression of the artist’s conceptual development. Consisting of two blue and two yellow lines stretching diagonally across the picture plane, the work is a skillfully simplified permutation of The Diagonal of May 25, 1963, the first sculpture by the artist to solely use fluorescent light tubes. In Flavin’s visual vocabulary, these lines, luminescing against the black background, represent the aforementioned tubes and allow for near infinite combinations of form and color through a highly minimal language. Describing his works on paper, Flavin stated, “all my diagrams, even the oldest, seem applicable again and continually. It is as though my system synonymizes its past, present and future states without incurring loss of relevance” (Dan Flavin in Artforum, December 1966, pp. 27-29). Following this logic, On No. 4 of June 1964, in its reduced linear elegance, is far more than a study in line and color. Instead, the work speaks to interactions of light and space, and the unlimited possibilities therein.