Robert Indiana | |
|---|---|
 Robert Indiana. Photo by Dennis Griggs | |
| Born | Robert Clark (1928-09-13)September 13, 1928 New Castle, Indiana, U.S. |
| Died | May 19, 2018(2018-05-19) (aged 89) Vinalhaven, Maine, U.S. |
| Education | Herron School of Art and Design,Arsenal Technical High School,Art Institute of Chicago,Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture,Edinburgh College of Art |
| Occupation(s) | Artist,theatrical set designer andcostume designer |
| Works | |
| Movement | Pop art,Hard-edge painting |
Robert Indiana (bornRobert Clark; September 13, 1928 – May 19, 2018) was an American artist associated with thepop art movement.
Indiana is mostly known for his iconic imageLOVE which was first created in 1964 in the form of a card. Indiana sent these cards to several friends and acquaintances in the art world. In 1965, Robert Indiana was invited to propose an artwork to be featured on theMuseum of Modern Art's annual Christmas card. Indiana submitted several 12” square oil on canvas variations based on his LOVE image. The museum selected the most intense color combination in red, blue, and green. It became one of the most popular cards the museum has ever offered. Indiana continued to develop his LOVE series, and in 1966, worked withMarian Goodman of Multiples, Inc. to make his first LOVE sculpture in aluminum. In 1970, Indiana completed his first monumental LOVE sculpture inCor-Ten steel which is in the collection of theIndianapolis Museum of Art.
Indiana has also been a focal point of the LGBTQ rights movement after it was disclosed that his famous LOVE artwork was the result of the breakup between him and artistEllsworth Kelly, who notably, inspired Indiana's style of work.[1]
In addition to being a painter and sculptor, Indiana made posters and prints and also designed stage sets and costumes for theVirgil Thompson andGertrude Stein operaThe Mother of Us All.[2] Indiana's artwork has been featured in numerous exhibitions around the world and is included in the permanent collections of many major museums including theMuseum of Modern Art, New York;Tate Modern, London; and theSan Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Robert Indiana was born Robert Clark inNew Castle, Indiana, and was adopted as an infant by Earl Clark and Carmen Watters.[3][4][5] After his parents divorced, he relocated toIndianapolis to live with his father so he could attendArsenal Technical High School (1942–1946),[6][7] from which he graduated asvaledictorian of his class.[4]
After serving for three years in theUnited States Army Air Forces, Indiana studied at theArt Institute of Chicago (1949–1953), theSkowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine (summer 1953) andEdinburgh University andEdinburgh College of Art (1953–1954).[7] He returned to the United States in 1954 and settled inNew York City.[8]
In New York, Indiana's romantic partner Ellsworth Kelly, whom he met in 1956, helped him find a loft onCoenties Slip.[4][9] On Coenties Slip, Kelly introduced Indiana to neighboring artists likeJack Youngerman,Agnes Martin andCy Twombly, with whom he shared his studio for a time.[4] It was around this time when Indiana and Kelly established their romantic relationship. Kelly would go on to become a mentor for Indiana, and later convince him to make the shift to the hard edge style that quickly became a fan favorite.[9]
An interview with Indiana later in life reveals that Indiana only saw himself as equal with Kelly. Although Indiana claims to be inspired by his homefront, The Slip, and Life Magazine, his biggest inspiration of all was Kelly.[10]
In 1958 he changed his surname to Indiana.[11] His career took off in the early 1960s afterAlfred H. Barr Jr., boughtThe American Dream, I for theMuseum of Modern Art.[12]
In 1964, Indiana moved fromCoenties Slip to a five-story building atSpring Street andthe Bowery.[13] In the summer of 1969, he visitedLife magazine photographer Elliot Elisofon on the Island of Vinalhaven and began renting the upstairs of the 100 year old Victorian-style[14] Odd Fellows Hall named"The Star of Hope" in the island town ofVinalhaven, Maine.[14] Indiana was drawn to the Odd Fellows insignia which consists of three interlocking links.
The three links of course are truth and friendship, and the important link in the middle just happens to be love. So I think I was fated to end my life in an Odd Fellows Lodge — Robert Indiana[15]
Half a century earlier,Marsden Hartley had made his escape to the same island.[14] Indiana discovered a great affinity to Marsden Hartley to whom he pays homage in a series of work in the late 1980s.[16] When Elisofon died in 1973, Indiana bought the lodge for $10,000 from his estate. He moved in full-time when he lost his lease on the Bowery in 1978.[17]
During this same year, Indiana created his most famous piece of art, LOVE, which was created in response to his breakup with Kelly, although this was not disclosed until several years later. This specific piece incorporated three colours, red, green, and blue, the most prominent colours in Kelly's work. However, this piece brought Indiana a lot of unwanted attention. Eventually, Indiana started to fade out of the public spotlight. It is speculated that the attention from LOVE became too much.[3]
Indiana grew reclusive in his final years.[4] He died on May 19, 2018, at his home inVinalhaven,Maine, ofrespiratory failure at the age of 89.[5] One day before his death, a lawsuit was filed over claims that his caretaker had isolated him from family and friends, and was marketing unauthorized reproductions of his works.[18]
Indiana's complex and multilayered work explores the power of language, American identity, and personal history, and often consists of striking, simple and direct words. Drawing on the vocabulary of vernacular highway signs and roadside entertainments, Indiana created a body of work that appears bold and energetic.[19] His best known examples include short words like EAT, DIE, HUG, ERR, andLOVE.
In his EAT series, the word blares in paint or light bulbs against a neutral background.[14] In a major career milestone, the architectPhilip Johnson commissioned anEAT sign for the New York State Pavilion at the1964 New York World's Fair.[12] The sign was turned off one day after the opening of the fair because visitors believed it to mark a restaurant.Andy Warhol's contribution to the fair was also removed that day.[20][21]
Indiana's series of monumental sculptures can be seen across the globe, includingLOVE, Imperial LOVE, LOVE Wall, AHAVA, AMOR, and ONE Through ZERO (The Ten Numbers). Indiana's own hard-edged painterly aesthetic paved the way for the later sculptural editions which would translate this into three dimensions.[16] In the aftermath of theSeptember 11, 2001, attacks, Indiana created his series of Peace Paintings which were exhibited at thePaul Kasmin Gallery in New York in 2004.[22]
Between 1989 and 1994, Indiana painted a series of 18 canvases inspired by the shapes and numbers in theWar Motif paintings thatMarsden Hartley did in Berlin between 1913 and 1915.[23]
Indiana was also a theatricalset andcostume designer; he designedSanta Fe Opera's 1976 production ofVirgil Thomson'sThe Mother of Us All, based on the life ofsuffragistSusan B. Anthony.[24] He was the star of Andy Warhol's filmEat (1964), which is a 45-minute film of Indiana eating a mushroom.[25] Warhol also made the brief silent filmBob Indiana Etc. (4 minutes, 1963), a portrait of the artist with appearances byWynn Chamberlain andJohn Giorno.[26]
Indiana's series of monumental sculptures of the digits zero through to nine,ONE Through ZERO (The Ten Numbers) has been displayed in several cities since its 1980 creation.[27]
Although most famously known for his hard edge artworks, Indiana's work originally focused less on hard edge until he was introduced to Ellsworth Kelly in 1956. Kelly quickly convinced Indiana to move into 25 Coenties Slip, better known as The Slip, where several other artists would later follow including Kelly himself. Other artists like Agnes Martin, Lenore Tawney, Ann Wilson, and Jack Youngerman soon followed. Living at the slip largely influenced Indiana's art, although it would be Ellsworth Kelly who suggested later on to Indiana to make the large shift into hard edge.[28]
Although known for several art pieces, Indiana's best known image is the word love in upper-case letters, arranged in a square with its trademarked tilted letter "O".[29] Theiconography first appeared in a series of poems originally written in 1958, in which Indiana stacked LO and VE on top of one another.[29] The first paintings addressing the subject of love were4-Star Love (1961) andLove Is God (1964).[29][30]
What many are unaware of is that Indiana's famous LOVE had evolved from a romantic relationship with his inspiration, Kelly. According to art historian Susan Elizabeth Ryan wrote that in 1964 LOVE had been a "more explicit four-letter word — beginning with F, and with a second letter, a U, intriguingly tilted to the right." Indiana and Kelly had been in a rocky relationship and Indiana had been working on word paintings. She adds "The two men were in the habit of exchanging postcard-size sketches, with Mr. Kelly laying down fields of color and Mr. Indiana adding large words atop the abstractions."[31][32] The 1950s were a critical time for Indiana and his art. Not only did he change his name to avoid confusion with other artists, but Indiana also fell in love with Kelly. This whirlwind romance resulted in Indiana moving into The Slip, as mentioned previously. Not only that, but Indiana's style drastically changed. Indiana claimed that Kelly introduced him to hard edge saying, "This was my first head-on contact with painting of any geometric, or clean hard-edge style."[1] However, after the two artists broke up in 1964 the cruder original artwork was changed by Indiana to the famous stacked LOVE.
Indiana's red, blue, and greenLOVE painting was then selected to appear on theMuseum of Modern Art’s annual Christmas card in 1965. In an interview Robert Indiana said "It was the most profitable Christmas card the museum ever published."[33]
Indiana said he was inspired to use these colors because his father used to work at aPhillips 66 gas station whose colors were green and red. Robert Indiana described the original colors as "the red and green of that sign against the blueHoosier sky". Still it is believed the colors were inspired also by the paintingRed Blue Green (1963) ofEllsworth Kelly, his former partner.[34][9]
The colours that dominate Indiana's love painting (red, blue, and green) are also the most prominent colours featured in Kelly's work. In this case, Indiana's work became more than just an art piece, but rather an ode to his former lover as well. As said by journalist Jonathon Jones, [LOVE] "is a sad love poem, perhaps even an angry one. Yet it instantly became a beacon of idealism, optimism, youth and revolt," although information regarding Indiana and Kelly's relationship was not publicly announced until 2013.[35]
Indiana said, "Ellsworth Kelly introduced me to Hard-Edge and was a great influence on my work, and is responsible for my being here".[33]
The firstserigraph/silk screen of LOVE was printed as part of an exhibition poster for Stable Gallery in 1966 on the occasion of Indiana's show dedicated to his LOVE series .[36]
In 1973, theUnited States Postal Service commissioned a stamp design by Indiana and released the eight-cent LOVE stamp in advance ofValentine's Day. Unveiled in a ceremony at thePhiladelphia Museum of Art, the stamp became so popular that 425 million were printed over the next two years.[37]
In 1977, he created a Hebrew LOVE with the four-letter wordAhava (אהבה "love" in Hebrew) usingCor-Ten steel, for theIsrael Museum Art Garden in Jerusalem.[38]
ForValentine's Day 2011,Google paid homage to Indiana's LOVE, which was displayed in place of the search engine site's normal logo.[39]
In 1962, Eleanor Ward'sStable Gallery hosted Robert Indiana's first New York solo exhibition.[40] Indiana's work has been represented byPaul Kasmin Gallery in New York City,Waddington Custot in London andGalerie Gmurzynska in Europe.[41]
From July 4 – September 14, 2008, Indiana's work was the subject of the grand multiple-location exhibitionRobert Indiana a Milano; the main exhibition took place at thePadiglione d’Arte Contemporanea (Pavilion of Contemporary Art), and other works were displayed in public piazzas in Milan.[42][43]
In 2013, theWhitney Museum of American Art mounted a retrospective of his work entitledRobert Indiana: Beyond LOVE, this exhibition traveled to theMcNay Art Museum inSan Antonio, Texas.[44]
In 2018 theBuffalo AKG Art Museum exhibitedRobert Indiana: A Sculpture Retrospective.[45]
The first retrospective of Indiana's sculptures in the United Kingdom, spanning 60 years of the artist's career, opened at theYorkshire Sculpture Park on March 12, 2022, and ran until January 2023.[46]
Millions of television viewers saw an orange, brown, and white version ofFive, one of Indiana's 1965 Numbers series, featured in an episode ofThe Mary Tyler Moore Show during the 1971–1972 season, in whichRhoda Morgenstern redecoratesLou Grant's dated living room. Lou, evidently not a fan of pop art, complains toMary, "I bet she went through four other paintings before choosing this one!"[47]
In 2014,ESPN releasedMECCA: The Floor That Made Milwaukee Famous, a short film in its30 for 30 series of sports documentaries. It chronicles how Indiana's floor at the MECCA was saved from being sold for scrap.[48]
Today, Indiana's artworks are featured in the collections of numerous museums globally, includingMuseum of Modern Art, New York;Whitney Museum of American Art, New York;Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York;National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.;Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.;Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C.Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine;Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands;McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas;Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh;Allentown Art Museum of the Lehigh Valley, Allentown, Pennsylvania;Williams College Museum of Art or WCMA, in Williamstown, Massachusetts;Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington;Detroit Institute of Art, Michigan;Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland; Brandeis Museum, Waltham, Massachusetts;Walker Art Center, Minneapolis;Albright-Knox Gallery, Buffalo, New York;San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California; theIndianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana; and theLos Angeles County Museum of Art, California;Menil Collection, Houston;Tate Modern, London;Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany;Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, the Netherlands;Nationalgalerie, Berlin; MUMOK (Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien), Vienna; Art Museum of Ontario, Toronto; and Israel Museum, Jerusalem. among many others.[49]
In May 2011, a 12-footLOVE sculpture – one in an edition of three identical pieces – sold for $4.1 million.[14]
Between 1989 and 1994, Mr. Indiana painted a series of 18 canvases inspired by the shapes and numbers in thewar motifs paintings that Hartley – who once worked in Vinalhaven – did in Berlin between 1913–1915. They commemorate a slain German officer the artist had befriended.
