Dan Chavkin

DAN CHAVKIN began his photographic career in 1992, studying at the prestigious school Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. Upon graduating, he moved to New York City to work as a professional photographer, shooting celebrity portraiture for various top magazines. An avid aficionado of all things modernist, Dan began collecting midcentury modern furniture, and vintage film posters, book covers, and periodicals as a way of feeding his passion for modernism. Returning to Los Angeles, his photographic work consisted of human-interest stories for numerous national publications and advertising campaigns. In the summer of 2008, upon a trip to Palm Springs, Dan discovered the wealth of midcentury modern architecture in the same desert city he had often visited as a child. Inspired by the architecture and its relation to the landscape, he began photographing the many examples of midcentury modern architecture in Palm Springs and throughout Coachella Valley. Since then, Dan has received critical acclaim for his architectural work from numerous modern preservation organizations, magazine publications, and modernist homeowners alike. In 2014, he co-authored a book on the husband-and-wife midcentury modern designers Jerome and Evelyn Ackerman, titled Hand-In-Hand, and in 2016, Dan published Unseen Midcentury Desert Modern, a photographic survey of hidden, often overlooked, desert modern residences, buildings, and houses of worship throughout the Coachella Valley.