Robert Indiana: Biography & Artwork

Robert
Indiana

Immortalised in his now-internationally recognisable LOVE sculptures, Robert Indiana’s artwork looks at American culture and advertisement through the lens of early Pop Art. Interested in buying or selling an Indiana original print and edition? Browse artworks from the artist's portfolio and enquire today. We provide print value advice and market consultancy, with zero obligation to sell.

Biography

Inspired by Pop Art, advertisement and the visuals of American life in the 1960s, Robert Indiana is an artist best known for his exploration of American culture through the use of language and commercially inspired designs, as well as being a key figure in the development of assemblage art and sculpture.

Born in New Castle, Indiana in 1928 as Robert Clark, Indiana spent most of his childhood moving around his namesake state. After serving three years in the United States Air Force, he attended the Art Institute of Chicago until 1953, followed by the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine, and then Edinburgh College of Art from 1953-54. He then returned to the United States in 1954 to settle in New York.

The Pop artist changed his name to Indiana in 1958, acknowledging his roots in the American Midwest. This was reflected in his work’s shift away from the figurative painting, typical of his art school years, to the more commercial imagery that his paintings adopted in the 1960s and have become emblematic of Indiana's art.

Indiana’s major artistic success was in the early 1960s, following the purchase of American Dream 1 (1960-61) by Alfred Barr Jr for the New York MoMA. This painting depicts four circles, stacked two on top of two, each of which contains a star and a combination of text and numbers. The vivid colours and repeated geometric imagery did much to establish Indiana’s signature commercial ‘Pop’ style and indeed this four-circle template has been returned to by the artist many times throughout his career, creating multiple variations of the American Dream. Indiana’s work was also featured in a number of influential New York shows during this period which solidified his reputation as a key emerging creative artist.

The most famous of Indiana’s works is his LOVE project, with few Pop images being more widely recognised. This distinct iconography of Indiana art, with the letters ‘L’ and a slightly tilted ‘O’ stacked on top of the ‘V’ and ‘E’ originally appeared in a series of poems written in 1958. An image that has become a quintessential Indiana artwork, and which has since reappeared across his oeuvre.

His LOVE iconography was featured in works such as 4-STAR LOVE (1961) and the MOMA commissioned Christmas card of 1965, which first contributed to its wide distribution. This iconic Indiana work was also made into a large-scale polychrome aluminium sculpture, which reiterated Indiana’s interest in the use of the written word as a viable artistic element. Speaking on this phenomenon, Indiana stated 'oddly enough, I wasn’t thinking at all about anticipating the love generation and hippies. It was a spiritual concept. It isn’t a sculpture of love any longer, it’s become the very image of love itself.'

The American experience has been a consistent source of inspiration for Indiana’s work, expressed typically through pop imagery, language and everyday objects. He took elements of the familiar and ordinary, often using found objects from his surroundings in his work. He stated himself 'There are more signs than trees in America…so I think of myself as a painter of American landscape.' Indiana’s work often also references American literature, with works such as the Melville Triptych (1961) and The Calumet (1961) directly lifting text from their inspiration.
Following his departure from New York in his later life, Indiana chose to draw inspiration from more local experiences. In particular, works such as Ash, (1985) look at found objects from his new surroundings in Maine. Indiana also drew inspiration from paintings of Marsden Hartley from the 1930s, which led to his own 18-part series of paintings known as the Hartley Elegies (1989-94).
Indiana met his lover and artist Ellsworth Kelly in 1956 and became close with him and fellow artists living in the Coenties slip area, such as Agnes Martin, Jack Youngerman, Cy Twombly and James Rosenquist. He continued to live in this area of Manhattan until he moved to Maine’s remote Vinalhaven island in 1978. A fiercely private man, Indiana nevertheless continued to create and remain involved in political and socially charged art projects until his death in 2018.

Robert Indiana’s iconic LOVE works – which span paintings, prints and sculptures – have by now become emblematic of American Pop culture. Since the first work appeared on the art scene in 1966, Indiana’s LOVE has taken over the entire world and the global art market. It is therefore no surprise that his 1990 painted aluminium Love Red/Blue sculpture holds the title for the most expensive Indiana work ever sold in US dollars.

The sculpture, part of a series of 3, was unveiled at Christie’s New York on 12 May 2011 on the occasion of their “Post-War and Contemporary Art Featuring Property from an Important Private European Collection Afternoon Session”, and fetched a whopping USD 4,114,500 (almost £3.4 million). Strikingly simple and direct, Indiana described Love Red/Blue as a “verbal-visual act” that explores the relationship between written and visual language.

A pioneer of Pop Art and hard-edge painting, Indiana explores the relationship between text, meaning and colour through this pivotal series. In Love Red/Blue, the letters are coated in shiny red and blue, created in the same scale and dual colour as the famous Love sculpture in New York's 6th Avenue and 55th Street. The word” love” is connected to the artist’s childhood memories at a Christian Science church, where he saw the inscription "God is Love" on the wall. The motif later came to embody the spirit of the 1960s hippie movements alongside other political, religious, erotic and autobiographical connotations.

Robert
Indiana

Notable collections

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Biography

Record prices

1. £2.7M for Robert Indiana's The Great American Love (Love Wall)

2. £2.7M for Robert Indiana's Love

3. £2.5M for Robert Indiana's Love Red-Blue (1990)

4 - 10.

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Robert Indiana

Notable collections

Buy and sell Robert Indiana prints

Sell Your Art with Us

Biography

Indiana, an American painter

Robert Indiana: A private life

Record prices

1. £2.7M for Robert Indiana's The Great American Love (Love Wall)

2. £2.7M for Robert Indiana's Love

3. £2.5M for Robert Indiana's Love Red-Blue (1990)

4 - 10.

Related Articles

Under The Hammer: Top Prices Paid For Robert Indiana At Auction

Related artists

Google reviews

4.9

Michelle Swann

David Popik

Deborah Ann Bell

VICKIE JAMES

Li Smith

Ian Hall

About

Contact

Robert
Indiana

Sell Your Art
with Us