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Robert Indiana

@robertindiana

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The official account dedicated to the legacy of artist Robert Indiana (1928-2018), managed by The Robert Indiana Legacy Initiative.
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We’re proud to announce that “Robert Indiana: An American Icon” is now available for pre-order on Phaidon.com. The book will be published worldwide in November 2026. This essential volume presents a comprehensive survey of Robert Indiana’s extraordinary life and career. Emerging in the 1960s, Indiana was deeply attuned to the historical and psychological structures shaping the nation, transforming personal words and numbers into universally legible symbols. While globally recognized for his LOVE imagery, this monograph uncovers the deeper dimensions of his practice, tracing his journey from the visual language forged at Coenties Slip to the introspective work produced on the island of Vinalhaven, Maine. Created in close collaboration with The Robert Indiana Legacy Initiative, the publication invites you to rediscover Indiana through more than 450 career-spanning images, rare archival materials, and a physical facsimile insert of the artist’s handwritten journals. Meticulously produced, it fosters a fuller understanding of his contributions to twentieth-century art, offering an unparalleled look at a vital American voice who continuously challenged the idealized narrative of the American Dream. Our sincerest thank you to @prudence_peiffer and Richard Meyer (@curiousrich) for their insightful contributions to the book and to Deb Aaronson and Maia Murphy at Phaidon. Click the link in bio to pre-order your copy. #RobertIndiana #RobertIndianaBook by @robertindiana
6
3 months ago
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As the @WhitneyMuseum of American Art opens "Roy Lichtenstein: Like New," the first New York retrospective of his work since 1993, a look at the history of early Pop art reveals a recurring connection between Lichtenstein and Robert Indiana.⁠ ⁠ It begins in print. In September 1962, critic Gene Swenson's "The American Sign-Painters" in Artnews names seven artists in one of the first attempts to define the new movement. Indiana and Lichtenstein are both among them. By December 1963, their works were hanging together at the Des Moines Art Center in Iowa, in "Signs of the Times Three: Paintings by Twelve Contemporary Pop Artists," where Indiana showed "The Dietary" (1962).⁠ ⁠ By the summer of 1964, the audience grew. Both artists were represented at the New York World's Fair, where Indiana's twenty-foot-square electric "EAT," commissioned by Philip Johnson for the Theaterama façade, was switched on for the first days of the fair. It drew crowds looking for a restaurant that didn't exist, and was unplugged for the remainder of the run.⁠ ⁠ The association of Indiana and Lichtenstein continued abroad, at Documenta 4 in Kassel, Germany, in 1968, and at "The Pop Art Show" at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 1991.⁠ ⁠ In sequence, these exhibitions show how the first chapters of Pop art were written.⁠ ⁠ "Roy Lichtenstein: Like New" is on view through May 10, 2027.⁠ •⁠ #TomWesselmann, (Left to right) Robert Indiana, Marisol Escobar, Roy Lichtenstein, 1984.⁠ #RobertIndiana, The Dietary, 1962. Photo: Courtesy of Sotheby’s, New York; Artwork: © Star of Hope Foundation, Vinalhaven, Maine⁠ #RobertIndiana in front of EAT at the World’s Fair. Photo: Bill Katz⁠ Installation view, Documenta 4, Kassel, Germany, June 27–October 6, 1968. Left to right, Tom Wesselman’s Great American Nude No. 98 (1967) and Mouth No. 15 (1968) and Indiana’s LOVE Wall (1966), with the panels hung incorrectly.⁠ #RobertIndiana in front of the Royal Academy, London, during The Pop Art Show, 1991. Photo: Courtesy Star of Hope Foundation, Vinalhaven, Maine by @robertindiana
2
5 days ago
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Almine Rech Paris is pleased to present “Robert Indiana: Alchemy”, Robert Indiana’s first solo exhibition with the gallery, organized in collaboration with The Robert Indiana Legacy Initiative, on view from October 17, 2026, to January 23, 2027. Concurrent with the exhibition, a monumental LOVE sculpture (‘LOVE WALL’, 1966-2006) by the artist will be on view as part of Art Basel Paris’ Public Program. A panel featuring Joe Lin-Hill and Clare Lilley will also take place at 5:30 pm on the opening day at Almine Rech Paris, with Annabelle Ténèze as the moderator.⁠   @robertindiana⁠   • Robert Indiana’s work is rooted in acts of transformation. From the weathered wood, rusted wheels, discarded architectural elements, and commercial stencils he found around Coenties Slip to the hard-edge paintings and monumental word sculptures for which he became known, Indiana repeatedly converted the overlooked and the ordinary into highly charged artistic form. His own description of this process as the transmutation of ‘the lost into the found, junk into art, the neglected into the wanted, the unloved into the loved, dross into gold’ provides a key to understanding the material, formal, and symbolic logic of his work. — Extract from “Robert Indiana: From the Neglected into the Wanted,” essay by Dieter Buchhart, art historian and curator. • “EAT”, 1962⁠ Engraved with the artist’s signature, date, and number⁠ Painted bronze⁠ 148.8 x 38.1 x 32 cm⁠ 58 5/8 x 15 x 12 5/8 in.⁠ Edition of 8 plus 2 APs⁠ “Columns (DIE, LOVE, HUG/EAT/ERR, EAT, EAT/DIE/HUG/ERR, HUG)”, 1963–64 Signed, dated, and inscribed along the lower edge with artist‘s signature, date, and edition number: R INDIANA COENTIES SLIP NYC 1964 Six gesso on wood beams with bases by Richard Artschwager 4 columns: 162.6 x 33.7 x 33.7 cm - 64 x 13 1/4 x 13 1/4 in; 1 column: 198.1 x 33.7 x 33.7 cm - 78 x 13 1/4 x 13 1/4 in; 1 column: 170.8 x 34.3 x 34.3 cm - 67 1/4 x 13 1/2 x 13 1/2 in; dimensions vary. ©️ 2026 The Robert Indiana Legacy Initiative / ARS Courtesy of The Robert Indiana Legacy Initiative •   #RobertIndiana #Alchemy #AlmineRechParis #Paris #AlmineRech taken in Paris, France by @robertindiana
4
6 days ago
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Robert Indiana's "Decade: Autoportrait 1961" is on view now in "The Bowery: Devil's Mile" at the @NewMuseum.⁠ ⁠ Indiana moved to his longtime workspace at Bowery and Spring Street in 1965, after leaving 25 Coenties Slip, where he had lived and worked for eight years, as the building faced demolition. His new space was a loft in a former luggage factory. He stayed thirteen years, until losing the lease in 1978, after which he relocated permanently to Vinalhaven, Maine.⁠ ⁠ He painted "Decade: Autoportrait 1961" at that Spring Street studio in 1971, part of a series in which he worked back through the 1960s one year at a time. The composition layers his initials, "IND," with "EAT," the last word his mother said to him before she died and a word that first entered his work in 1961, and "BOWERY," marking the very address where he was painting it. A five-pointed star and a circle stand in for the American flag and the Christian Science idea of eternal life; unlike most works in the series, this one leaves out the decagon that usually frames them.⁠ ⁠•⁠ #RobertIndiana, Decade: Autoportrait 1961, 1971⁠ Oil on canvas⁠ 24 x 24 in. (61 x 61 cm)⁠ Photo: Courtesy of Christie’s, New York; Artwork: © The Robert Indiana Legacy Initiative/Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY⁠ ⁠ #RobertIndiana in his Spring Street studio, Basil Langton, n.d.⁠ Image courtesy of the Estate of Basil Langton⁠ ⁠ #RobertIndiana in his studio, in front of a painting from the Decade: Autoportrait series, Hans Namuth, n.d.⁠ Photograph by Hans Namuth / Posthumous digital reproduction from original negative / Hans Namuth Archive, Center for Creative Photography © 1991 Hans Namuth Estate by @robertindiana
6
8 days ago
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Robert Indiana's "LOVE" (1966–2002) is on view now at the Yangyun & Donum Art Festival, running through January 10, 2027 across the historic villas, courtyards, and gardens of Yangyun on the outskirts of Shanghai.⁠ ⁠ The stacked LOVE began in December 1964 as a Christmas card. Indiana drew the word in a square, L and O over V and E, and sent it to friends in the art world. Paintings followed soon after, while the Museum of Modern Art later selected a red, blue, and green version of the design, based on one of Indiana's paintings, for its 1965 holiday card. By May 1966, Indiana had translated the design into his first sculpture, shown at the Stable Gallery. He later called the sculpture "the culmination of ten years of work" spent treating words as usable elements of art, a return, after years of increasingly complex word paintings, to a single term and a simple, quartered structure. A twelve-foot Cor-Ten steel version followed in 1970, debuting at the Indianapolis Museum of Art before traveling to Boston and then to New York's Central Park. Polychrome aluminum editions came after, installed everywhere from Philadelphia to Tokyo to Singapore and beyond.⁠ ⁠ The version at Yangyun, gold-faced with red-painted sides, stands 72 x 72 x 36 inches, one of six numbered editions plus four artist's proofs, installed in the site's courtyards as part of a presentation of more than 80 works by 21 artists from the Donum Collection in Sonoma, curated by Philip Tinari with support from the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art.⁠ •⁠ Installation view of LOVE, 1966–2002, at Yangyun, Shanghai, 2026. Artwork: © The Robert Indiana Legacy Initiative/Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY by @robertindiana
0
12 days ago
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On Jimmy Carter's 102nd birthday, a look at the print Robert Indiana made in his honor.⁠ ⁠ "An Honest Man Has Been President: A Portrait of Jimmy Carter" (1980) is a serigraph in colors, built around a circle framing a large numeral one, itself a nod to Indiana's Decade: Autoportraits series and, more directly, to his support for Carter. Around it, Indiana worked in the details of a life: Plains, Georgia, Carter's birthplace; Rosalynn, his wife's name; K-1, referencing the USS Barracuda, the submarine Carter served on; and 76, the year he was elected. The Democratic National Committee commissioned the print for its Presidential Portfolio, a fundraising publication for Carter's unsuccessful 1980 re-election campaign, alongside work by other artists.⁠ ⁠ The title is a deliberate echo of Indiana's own "A Divorced Man Has Never Been the President" (1961-62), a pointed commentary on the public morality and judgment surrounding divorce in American political life. Built around a blue star ringed by circles marked "US," the painting referenced the controversy surrounding Nelson Rockefeller, whose divorce was widely seen as damaging his prospects as a presidential candidate. Indiana was interested in the shallow morality and public judgment that could shape a politician's career.⁠ •⁠ #RobertIndiana, An Honest Man Has Been President: A Portrait of Jimmy Carter, 1980⁠ Serigraph in colors on off-white wove paper⁠ Edition of 150 plus 30 artist’s proofs numbered with Roman numerals⁠ Photo: Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York; Artwork: © The Robert Indiana Legacy Initiative/Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY⁠ ⁠ Indiana, left, presenting his serigraph An Honest Man Has Been President, to President Jimmy Carter and Vice President Walter Mondale, The White House, Washington, D.C., January 1981. Image courtesy of Star of Hope Foundation, Vinalhaven, Maine⁠ ⁠ #RobertIndiana, A Divorced Man Has Never Been the President, 1961–62⁠ Oil on canvas⁠ Sheldon Museum of Art, University of Nebraska -Lincoln. Gift of Philip Johnson (U-581.1968)⁠ Photo: Courtesy of the Sheldon Museum of Art, University of Nebraska; Artwork: © The Robert Indiana Legacy Initiative/Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY by @robertindiana
3
15 days ago
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Few artists made the language of American life as instantly recognizable as Robert Indiana. Across six decades, words, numbers, signs, and symbols became the building blocks of a singular visual language, one that moved fluidly between painting, sculpture, poetry, and the everyday world around him.⁠ ⁠ This new monograph from Phaidon offers an expansive portrait of Indiana’s life and work, bringing together more than 450 images alongside archival material, writings, and works spanning his career. From the early assemblages and number paintings to the iconic LOVE series and the later works that continued his exploration of American identity, the book traces the breadth and complexity of an artist whose work remains deeply embedded in the cultural imagination.⁠ ⁠ Published in collaboration with The Robert Indiana Legacy Initiative, "Robert Indiana: An American Icon" will be available October 28, 2026.⁠ ⁠ Pre-order now via the link in bio.⁠ •⁠ #RobertIndiana #RobertIndianaBook by @robertindiana
1
16 days ago
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On this day in 2013, the @whitneymuseum opened "Robert Indiana: Beyond LOVE," the artist's first U.S. retrospective in twenty-five years and his first ever in New York City.⁠ ⁠ Curated by Barbara Haskell, the show brought together nearly ninety works, addressing "the political, social, and personal dimensions of Indiana's work" to present, in the museum's words, "a multifaceted portrait of a complex artist deeply engaged with his times." The focus fell heavily on his 1960s output: the "American Dream" and "Confederacy" series, his early literary paintings, and major LOVE canvases including "LOVE Cross" (1968) alongside his first LOVE sculpture (1966-1968). The exhibition also surfaced rarely seen early works, "Mene, Mene, Tekel" (1955-56/1989) and "The American Sweetheart" (1959-61) among them, plus his early herms and constructions and, from the other end of his career, paintings from the Hartley Elegy series and "The Ninth American Dream" (2001).⁠ ⁠ "Beyond LOVE" ran at the Whitney through January 5, 2014, before traveling to the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, where it was on view February 5 through May 25, 2014.⁠ ⁠•⁠ Jack Youngerman, Charles Hinman, Indiana, and James Rosenquist at the opening of Robert Indiana: Beyond LOVE, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, September 24, 2013. © Jody Dole 2013⁠ Installation views of Robert Indiana: Beyond LOVE, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, September 26, 2013–January 5, 2014. Photo: Tom Powel Imaging by @robertindiana
4
20 days ago
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Marian Goodman Gallery (@mariangoodmangallery) brings Robert Indiana's "New Glory Banner" (1963) to Independent 20th Century, on view September 24-27 at Sotheby's Breuer building.⁠ ⁠ Made from felt appliqué, in an edition of 20, "New Glory Banner" was Indiana's earliest exploration of the American flag as subject: red and white stripes surrounding a blue circle of white stars, in a rectangular format that could be hung either vertically or horizontally. It was published by the Betsy Ross Flag & Banner Co. and distributed through Multiples, Inc., the company Marian Goodman herself co-founded in 1965, more than a decade before she opened Marian Goodman Gallery in 1977. This presentation marks a return to the artists and the format that launched her career.⁠ ⁠ That presentation brings together eleven banners published between 1963 and 1972 by artists including Arman, Jim Dine, Helen Frankenthaler, Indiana, Roy Lichtenstein, Marisol, James Rosenquist, Miriam Schapiro, Andy Warhol, and Tom Wesselmann. A further selection will be on view at the gallery's Tribeca headquarters, alongside a small publication commemorating the presentation with an essay by David Platzker.⁠ ⁠•⁠ ⁠Installation view of Marian Goodman's booth at The Independent Art Fair. Photo credit: Alex Yudzon⁠ ⁠ #RobertIndiana, New Glory Banner, 1963⁠ Felt, aluminum bars⁠ 87 1/2 x 51 1/2 in. (222.3 x 130.8 cm)⁠ Photo credit: Alex Yudzon by @robertindiana
4
21 days ago
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Summer may be winding down, but “Robert Indiana: ONE Through ZERO (The Ten Numbers), 1980-2003” is just settling in for the season at the Parrish Art Museum’s south meadow in Water Mill, New York.⁠ ⁠ Indiana began working with numerals in the early 1960s, after finding brass die-cut stencils in Lenore Tawney’s loft at Coenties Slip and a printer’s calendar in a business supply store. In 1962, he began using Arabic numerals as a central motif in his work, adding numbers to his herms and constructions. He carried this vocabulary into painting with his Numbers series in 1964, ten canvases assigning a color to each numeral, and later into “Decade Autoportraits” (1971-1977).⁠ ⁠ In 1980, Indiana conceived “ONE Through ZERO” as ten monumental sculptures, one numeral for each stage of life, birth to death. This Cor-ten steel edition wasn’t fabricated until 2003. ⁠ ⁠ “Robert Indiana: ONE Through ZERO (The Ten Numbers), 1980-2003” is on view at the Parrish Art Museum’s south meadow through January 13, 2027, on loan courtesy of Pace Gallery, New York, with support from the Robert Indiana Legacy Initiative.⁠ ⁠ 🎥: @lizglasgowstudios taken in Parrish Art Museum by @robertindiana
4
25 days ago
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Almine Rech Paris is pleased to present Robert Indiana’s first solo exhibition with the gallery, ”Robert Indiana: Alchemy“, on view from October 17 to January 23, 2027. On this occasion, a panel featuring Joe Lin-Hill and Clare Lilley will take place at 5:30 pm on the opening day at Almine Rech Paris, with Annabelle Ténèze as the moderator.⁠ ⁠ @robertindiana⁠ ⁠ •⁠ ⁠ Robert Indiana (September 13, 1928 – May 19, 2018) was an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker who played a central role in the development of assemblage art, hard-edge painting, and Pop art. Indiana, a self-proclaimed ”American painter of signs,“ created a highly original body of work that explores American identity, personal history, and the power of abstraction and language, establishing an important legacy that resonates in the work of many contemporary artists who make the written word a central element of their oeuvre.⁠ ⁠ ”Robert Indiana has made of basic American iconography the most subtle and evocative resonance of color his time has seen. He has used the figure of language and number to echo endlessly the paradigms of human emotions and made ‘LOVE’ an international sign of transcendent power. He is the most deftly Emersonian of our painters, the consummate signer of our human declaration.“⁠ ⁠ — Robert Creeley, American poet and author⁠ ⁠ •⁠ ⁠ Robert Indiana in his studio, Vinalhaven, Maine⁠ Photo by Dennis and Diana Griggs⁠ ⁠ ”EAT“, 1962⁠ Engraved with the artist‘s signature, date, and number⁠ Painted bronze⁠ 148.8 x 38.1 x 32 cm⁠ 58 5/8 x 15 x 12 5/8 in.⁠ Edition of 8 plus 2 APs⁠ ©️ 2026 The Robert Indiana Legacy Initiative / ARS Courtesy of The Robert Indiana Legacy Initiative ⁠ •⁠ ⁠ #RobertIndiana #AlmineRech taken in Paris, France by @robertindiana
4
a month ago
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On this day, 98 years ago, Robert Clark was born, though the world would come to know him by a name he chose for himself.⁠ ⁠ He entered the world in New Castle, Indiana, on September 13, 1928, and was adopted as an infant by Earl and Carmen Clark. His childhood in and around Indianapolis was restless: the family moved 21 times before he was 17, and his parents divorced when he was around ten years old. Indiana later credited that jumble of addresses with the fascination that would define his art, including a lifelong preoccupation with numbers, that runs from his early constructions to works like "The American Dream, I." ⁠ ⁠ He graduated valedictorian of Arsenal Technical High School in 1946, and it wasn't until 1958, that Robert Clark became Robert Indiana, taking the name of the state that shaped him.⁠ ⁠ Swipe through five images spanning the life of Robert Indiana.⁠ •⁠ #RobertClark, ca. 1931⁠ #RobertClark, age seven, on the back of a longhorn steer at the Frontier Centennial Exposition, Fort Worth, Texas, 1936⁠ #RobertClark, Hobbs Army Air Field, Hobbs, New Mexico, 1947. Image courtesy of Star of Hope, Vinalhaven, Maine⁠ #RobertClark, Chicago, 1953, with the untitled oil painting (later destroyed) that helped him win a Foreign Travelling Fellowship from the Art Institute of Chicago. Image courtesy of Dennis and Diana Griggs, Maine⁠ #RobertIndiana at 25 Coenties Slip, New York, with, left, Two Golden Orbs (1959) and, right, Twenty Golden Orbs (1959), each in an early state, summer 1959. Photo: John Ardoin by @robertindiana
3
a month ago
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