DAN CHAVKIN

In 1992, I began my photographic career studying at the  Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. Upon graduating, I moved to New York City to begin my career as a professional photographer, shooting celebrity portraiture for a variety of top magazines. An avid aficionado of all things modernist, I began collecting mid-century modern furniture, ephemera, and vintage periodicals as a way of feeding my passion for modernism.

Returning to Los Angeles, my photographic work consisted of human-interest stories for numerous national publications as well as advertising campaigns.

It wasn’t until the summer of 2008 that I discovered, upon a trip to Palm Springs, the wealth of mid-century modern architecture that exists in the same desert city I had visited numerous times as a child. Inspired by the architecture and its relation to the desert landscape, I immediately shifted my photography to architecture and subsequently began photographing most the many examples of mid-century modern architecture in Palm Springs and throughout Coachella Valley.

Since then, I have received critical acclaim for my architectural work from several modern preservation organizations, magazine publications and modernist homeowners alike.

In 2014, I co-authored a book on the husband and wife midcentury modern designers Jerome & Evelyn Ackerman titled, Hand-In-Hand.

And in February 2016, the publisher Gibbs Smith released the first book on my architectural photography, Unseen Midcentury Desert Modern. The book is a photographic survey of hidden and often overlooked desert modern residences, buildings and houses of worship throughout the Coachella Valley.

I live and work in Palm Springs and Los Angeles, California.

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PUBLISHED BOOKS

HAND-IN-HAND: Ceramics, Mosaics, Tapestries, and Woodcarvings by the California Mid-Century Modern Designers EVELYN & JEROME ACKERMAN, 2014
                                                                                                                  UNSEEN MIDCENTURY DESERT MODERN, 2016

featured In:

PINK JEWEL OF THE DESERT: THE ARCHITECTURE OF MARRAKESH COUNTRY CLUB, 2018

TROUSDALE ESTATES, 2017                                                                        

DESERT MODERNISTS, 2015