Robert Indiana – a self-proclaimed ‘American painter of signs’ and leading figure of Pop art
A preeminent figure in American art since the 1960s, Robert Indiana played a central role in the development of assemblage art, hard-edge painting, and Pop art. His highly original body of work explores American identity, personal history, and the power of abstraction and language. From his formative years moving around the state of Indiana, to his groundbreaking time at Coenties Slip, discover the fascinating life and art of one of America’s most exciting artists.
Robert from Indiana
Born in New Castle, Indiana on 13 September 1928, Robert Clark was adopted as an infant and spent his childhood moving frequently around his namesake state. Living in 21 houses before the age of 17, the state itself was his home, and perhaps it was this sense of identity with the state that led him years later to change his name to Robert Indiana.
His artistic talent recognised at an early age, Indiana always knew that he wanted to become an artist. At the age of 14, he moved to Indianapolis where he attended Arsenal Technical High School, which was known for its impressive arts curriculum. Following graduation, he spent three years in the U.S. Air Force before studying at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Skowhegan School of Sculpture and Painting in Maine, and the Edinburgh College of Art in Scotland.
The Coenties Slip
Once a bustling canal way, Coenties Slip was the main route into the heart of Manhattan for industrial merchants, the fishing trade and sailors in the nineteenth-century. However in the 1880s, the canal route became obsolete and was filled in with uneven tarmac and cement, leaving behind a row of industrial buildings once occupied as marine workshops, shop fronts and apartments, increasingly derelict and destined for demolition. By the 1950s, a small group of artists took notice of the historic buildings, which offered incredibly cheap rent and an abundance of space.
In 1956 whilst working in an art supply shop in New York, Indiana met the artist Ellsworth Kelly who was already living and working at Coenties Slip. Located just off of Wall Street, Indiana soon joined Kelly and fellow artists Agnes Martin, Jack Youngerman and James Rosenquist at the unassuming area of Lower Manhattan, where he made his most career-defining work.
The abandoned relics of industry left behind an abundance of inspiration and free supplies for the artist. Salvaged wood including beams from sail masts and discarded metal such as bicycle wheels became a part of his early assemblage art, while his discovery of die-cut stencils were the starting point of his letter and number paintings that took the Pop art scene by storm.
Eat – Die, 1962
Indiana offered in his time a few explanations for his impactful Diptych ‘Eat – Die’. Though the one that holds the most meaning is the association with his mother.
‘the most important [one] as far as painting is concerned, is, of course, the fact that “Eat” was the last word that my mother said before she died. And the whole “Eat – Die” diptych series of paintings is related to that one specific experience. Then, of course, “Eat” goes back much further and fills a large, shall we say, part of my life because my, well – first of all, back even further, it always seemed the, shall we say, the happiest moments of my childhood and those which were most exciting were these big family reunions where, where eating was the most important thing.’ – * Robert Indiana
When Pop world’s combine
In 1964 Indiana collaborated with fellow Pop icon, Andy Warhol on the film ‘Eat’, a silent portrait of Indiana eating a mushroom.
In the 45 minute ‘anti-film’, Indiana sits in a wooden rocking chair in his Coenties Slip studio, while slowly and tentatively biting into the mushroom as though it were an apple. Looking at the raw vegetable, around the room, to the window, the camera, and back once more to the mushroom, the film is a playful and oddly fascinating experiment – particularly when Indiana introduces his beloved cat Particci, who garners the spotlight with her posed paws and striking whiskers.
LOVE
After his ten years of dedicated work and development at Coenties Slip, 1966 proved to be a turning point in Indiana’s career.
The word love was of great spiritual significance to the artist and had featured in numerous works before his 1966 paintings and sculptures. Initially starting out as small graphite and colour pencil drawings in the winter of 1964, Indiana sent out his earliest renditions of the two-letters-over-two format of LOVE to his art world friends and acquaintances as Christmas cards. The following year in 1965, LOVE was selected by the Museum of Modern Art for its official Christmas card.
By 1966, Indiana had his third solo exhibition at Stable Gallery, New York, where he exhibited a collection of LOVE paintings, that varied in colour and layout, alongside his first LOVE sculpture. With their clear design and hard-edged colour, they gained much critical praise. The ‘Love Generation’ adopted Indiana’s design as their own emblem, before it appeared on a best-selling United States Postal Service Stamp in 1973.
A painter of words
Words have always been of great importance to Indiana – at high school he ran the school newspaper, and, during his time at the University of Edinburgh he studied botany, social philosophy and English literature. While there, he also joined the poetry society, and took evening classes at the Edinburgh College of Art, working in the print studio on lithographs and hand setting his poetry. Perhaps, even before his discovery of stencils at Coenties Slip, words and art were an inevitable collaborative outcome for the artist. Instilling meaning, addressing the profound and personal, social and political as well as historical and literary, the leader of Pop art distinguished his own path with his affecting and iconic painted words.
Sources
* https://www.robertindiana.com/artworks/artworks-items/eat-die
Arthur C. Carr, “The Reminiscences of Robert Indiana,” New York, November 1965, Arthur C. Carr papers; Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library, p. 62.
© Morgan Art Foundation, LLC. Licensed by Artestar, New York.
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