Robert Indiana

born New Castle, IN (USA) 1928

Robert Indiana, an American painter, sculptor and graphic artist was born in New Castle, Indiana in 1928. He graduated from Arsenal Technical High School, Indianapolis in 1942 and had his first one-man show of watercolors. Works which bear the influence of Reginald Marsh, Edward Hopper and Charles Sheeler.

Indiana's work has evolved into hard-edged graphic images of words, logos and typographic forms, earning him a reputation as one of the country's leading contemporary artists.

In 1945 he attended Saturday classes at the John Herron Art Institute, studying under Edwin Fulwinder. Though he received a scholarship to this institution in 1946, he entered the Army Air Corps instead. While serving in the Army he attended classes at Syracuse University and studied under Oscar Weissbuch at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute.

From 1949 to 1953 he attended the School of the Art Institute, Chicago.He then completed his BFA requirements at the university of Edinburgh while on a travel fellowship, and later moved to New York.

In the mid 1950s he was living near Ellsworth Kelly, Jack Youngerman, James Rosenquist, Charles Hinnman and other artists on Coenties Slip in New York. It was at this time that he began doing hard-edged paintings; the first ones based on the doubled form of the ginkgo leaf, a motif that continued for several years.

In the early 1960s he did his first constructions of junk wood and weathered iron. These works, at first severely geometric, combine metal and wood with gesso. In the early 1960s several of his works were purchased by major museums and collectors and his pieces were included in many exhibitions, including his first one-man show in 1962 at the Stable Gallery, New York. In 1964 he collaborated with Andy Warhol on the film EAT and in the same year received his first public commission, a work for the exterior of the New York State Pavilion at the New York World's Fair -- a 20-foot EAT Sign.

In 1967 he exhibited one of his few figurative works, Mother and Father (1963-67, collection of the artist), at the Ninth Sao Paulo Bienal, Brazil. He was represented at Documents IV, Kassel, Germany by some fifteen pieces and did a serigraph, Die Deutsche Vier, for this exhibition.

Select Timeline

• 1942 - Graduated from Arsenal Technical High School, Indianapolis
• 1945 - He attended Saturday classes at the John Herron Art Institute, studying under Edwin Fulwinder
• 1949 - To 1953 - he attended the School of the Art Institute, Chicago
• 1962 - First one-man show at the Stable Gallery, New York
• 1964 - He collaborated with Andy Warhol on the film EAT and in the same year received his first public commission, a work for the exterior of the New York State Pavilion at the New York World's Fair - a 20-foot EAT Sign.
• 1967 - he exhibited one of his few figurative works, Mother and Father (1963-67, collection of the artist), at the Ninth Sao Paulo Bienal, Brazil

Select Exhibitions

Select Artwork

• The Figure Five, 1971
• Love, 1996
• Ahava, 1993
• Mozart - Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, 1971
• Mississippi, 1971
• An Honest Man has been President, 1980
• The Bridge, 1983
• School of the Slip, 1957-2004
• Decade Autoportrait, 1966

Quotes

• "I never had the exposure to techniques and so forth that children have today with art workshops, but I always had crayons and pencils and still have work going right back to when I was five or six years old."
• "Many, many of my paintings have come from the first chapter of Moby Dick."
• "I've always been fascinated by numbers. Before I was seventeen years old, I had lived in twenty-one different houses. In my mind, each of those houses had a number."
• "My Great Dane once pulled me down a snow bank and broke my leg. His name was Casso. We'd take him for a walk and say, "Pee, Casso. Picasso is not one of my favorite artists.""
• "Pop art is the American Dream, optimistic, generous, and naive!"
• "Some people like to paint trees. I like to paint love. I find it more meaningful than painting trees."

Publications

• Robert Indiana - by Carl J Weinhardt, Harry N. Abrams (September 1, 1990)
• Robert Indiana: The Artist and His Work 1955 - 2005 - by John Wilmerding (Author), Joachim Pissarro (Contributor), Robert Pincus-Witten (Contributor), Peter Halley, Rizzoli (December 26, 2006)
• Robert Indiana: Figures of Speech - by Susan Elizabeth Ryan, Yale University Press (May 11, 2000)
• Robert Indiana: Retrospective 1958-1998 - by Joachim Pissarro (Author), Helene Depotte, Univ of Washington Pr (January 2000)
• Robert Indiana;: Graphics - by Robert Indiana, Department of Art of Saint Mary's College (1969)
• Robert Indiana Prints: A Catalogue Raisonne 1951-1991 - by Susan Sheehan, Susan Sheehan Gallery (March 1992)
• Love and the American Dream: The Art of Robert Indiana (Portland Museum of Art) - by Robert Indiana, Portland Museum of Art (July 1999)
• Robert Indiana - by Robert Indiana, Falcon Press (1968)

Quick Facts

• Robert Indiana (born September 13, 1928) is an American artist associated with the Pop Art movement.
• The LOVE emblem has been adopted by skateboarders, frequently used in skateboard magazines and videos. After skateboarding was banned in Philadelphia's LOVE Park, the emblem was used by organizations opposing the ban.
• Indiana's best known image is the word "LOVE" in a square with a tilted "O". This image, first created for a Christmas card for the Museum of Modern Art in 1964, was included on an 8 cent United States Postal Service postage stamp in 1973, the first of their regular series of "love stamps."

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