Robert Indiana
Born: 13 September 1928, Indiana, USA
Nationality: American
Died: 19 May 2018, Maine, USA

Renowned for his iconic LOVE series, which has been reproduced from large sculptures to postage stamps., Indiana explored the American experience using everyday objects and language. His hard-edge painting, popular imagery, and bold colours often associate him and his work with Pop Art but Indiana, himself, rejected the label. Beyond the visual light-heartedness lie levels of personal and political meaning, often dark and/or critical. He integrated non-art materials, everyday language, and commercial graphic design with traditional elements of fine art to elevate the viewer’s experience and lead it into a history of art and American identity.

Indiana admired early-20th-century American Modernism and reflected on questions of national identity posed by artists such as Charles Demuth, Edward Hopper, and Marsden Hartley. He built upon their use of the familiar, the ordinary, and the industrial to transform the popular into fine art. Often cast as an elusive and tragic quest, Indiana filled the American dream with eye-catching slogans and advertising graphics.

A common language appears throughout Indiana’s work, often layered with coded meanings, coming from his life experiences, and classical or literary studies. Closely resembling advertisements his work acts like ads or billboards that subtly critique popular culture and consumerism.

Indiana’s ordinary images and commercial style appear similar to Pop Art, yet his work is layered with historical art references and personal iconography, complicating their generic execution. Politically and socially engaged, Indiana questioned consumerism and mass culture, criticizing the ideal Pop Art treated ambiguously.

Adopted as an infant by Earl Clark and Carmen Watters Clark, Indiana was named Robert Earl Clark and grew up in a financially unstable environment. His parents divorced when he was nine years old and his mother worked as a diner waitress, a time that would be a powerful influence on Indiana’s career. One of life’s free spirits, his mother frequently moved and by seventeen Indiana had lived in twenty-one different places.

Indiana’s interest in art was encouraged from an early age by his first-grade teacher who asked to keep a few of his drawings because she knew he would be a famous artist. Years later he visited the teacher and she showed him the saved drawings which he then signed as a successful artist.

Indiana graduated high school in 1946 and enlisted in the USAF to fund his college studies through the GI Bill. He enrolled at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1949 after completing his military service. Indiana also studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine and the Edinburgh College of Art, Scotland before receiving his BFA in 1954.

Indiana planned to settle in Chicago on his return from Europe in 1954 but lack of funds kept him in New York. His job at an art supply store led to a meeting with Ellsworth Kelly in 1956. The two became romantically involved and Kelly encouraged Indiana to move to the Coenties Slip area of Manhattan and create hard-edge paintings.

The move brought Indiana into a community of artists and proved highly influential in his work. Discarded materials such as metal. wheels and pieces of wood were used to make some of his earliest “herms” sculptures. On finding a box of brass stencils in a friend’s attic Indiana was also inspired to include words into his works. These materials define Indiana’s approach to his art and also gave him the tools to combine the ordinary into a history of fine art. Words added a layer of meaning and blended the personal with the universal.

Words became a prominent feature in Indiana’s work whilst his graphic style and use of language were similar to other artists of the new Pop Art movement, Indiana disliked the label. He interacted with the group, including an appearance in Andy Warhol’s film “Eat” (1963). However, he distinguished himself from the movement through the autobiographical nature of his work and in art that openly addressed political and social issues of the day.

In 1966 Indiana exhibited his first ‘LOVE’ works that featured the word itself stacked in two rows with the ‘O’ slightly tilted. Despite its simplicity, the word made a powerful statement at a time of national and international unrest. ‘LOVE’ proved a source of inspiration the world over including other artists such as John Lennon leading to the Beatles hit ‘All You Need Is Love’ (1967).

Proud of his people’s painter status, Indiana was proficient in many media. In addition to his sculpted versions of LOVE, he created prints and posters, designed costumes, and sets for the opera ‘The Mother of Us All,’ and created a floor design for the Milwaukee MECCA Arena basketball court in 1997

Indiana was a fiercely private person and moved to the remote Vinalhaven Island, Maine in 1978. Despite the physical retreat his work was still deeply inspired by contemporary events and activist in nature. After September 11 he created the painting Afghanistan (2001) and boarded up the first-floor windows of his home to paint them with images of the American flag. In 2008 Indiana created the graphic ‘Hope’ as an artistic statement of support for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign

Robert Indiana: The Artist and His Work 1955 – 2005 by John Wilmerding