Dan Christensen arrived in New York City in the summer of 1965 from the Midwest, with the purpose of establishing himself as an important contemporary abstract painter.
After Dave Wagner returned to Iowa in March 1966, his friend the painter Ronnie Landfield shared his Great Jones Street loft with him until the early winter of 1967.
Kenneth Showell, Peter Young, Michael Steiner, Ronnie Landfield, Dick Anderson, his brother Don Christensen, Peter Reginato, Carlos Villa, David R. Prentice, James Monte, Frosty Myers, Tex Wray, Larry Zox, Larry Poons, Robert Povlich, Neil Williams (artist), Carl Gliko, Billy Hoffman, Francine Tint, Lee Lozano, Pat Lipsky, John Griefen, Brice Marden, John Chamberlain, Donald Judd, Frank Stella, Carl Andre, Dan Graham, Robert Smithson, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Kenneth Noland, Clement Greenberg, Bob Neuwirth, Joseph Kosuth, Mark di Suvero, Sherron Francis, Brigid Berlin, Lawrence Weiner, Rosemarie Castoro, Marjorie Strider, Dorothea Rockburne, Colette, and Marisol were just a few of the artists he saw regularly at Max's Kansas City — the favorite place for artists in New York City during the 1960s.
[4] In the late fall of 1966 the art dealer Richard Bellamy visited the Great Jones Street loft and began to represent Dan Christensen's work.
Dorothy Herzka co-curated a group exhibition that included Dan Christensen, Ronnie Landfield, Kenneth Showell, and Peter Gourfain in February 1967 at the Bianchini Gallery on W. 57th Street in Manhattan.
He is survived by his wife Elaine Grove Christensen (sculptor & actress), and his three sons: Moses, James (of the Hip Hop group Junk Science, currently signed to Definitive Jux records) and William, his brother Don and his two sisters Marilyn and Kay.