Early Years in Cleveland
The strong artistic abilities he demonstrated in a high school art class, led to Dan’s entrance to The Cleveland Institute of Art. His entrance portfolio consisted of less than a year’s work. By his second year at the Institute, he made a commitment to having a fine art’s career. In 1961, he graduated second in his class.
While at the Institute, he used the figure as a point of reference, departing from it to make abstractions based on formal problems. At that time, he felt his technical abilities lacked depth, in that they were developed far beyond his ideas.
At commencement, Dan received The CIA Women’s Award. The $1000 prize was used to attend Yale in the fall, 1961
Use of Figure as Point of Reference while at The Cleveland Inst.
By 1964, when he was in his last year of graduate school at Yale, he saw certain tendencies within his work growing stronger—these would guide his development over the course of his career.