Robert Indiana Signed Prints & Originals

Biography for Robert Indiana

born 1928

Most famous for his iconic ‘Love’ sculptures and graphics, Robert Indiana is the true master of American sign Painting. Taking the everyday symbols of roadside America and making them into brilliantly coloured geometric pop art, his bold contrasting sculptures can be seen dotted throughout the city streets of America, solid colourful creations dazzling against the monochrome buildings and general greyness of city life. Often depicting short words like ‘Eat’ ‘Hug’ and ‘Love’ they bring smiles and warmth to the weary worn street walker who passes them.

Born Robert Clark in the state of Indiana in 1928, he decided to adopt the name of his native birth place as a pseudonymous surname. During a typical Midwestern boyhood, highway signs had a symbolic importance for him. Robert Indiana’s father worked for ‘Phillips 66’ gas station and when he walked out on his wife and young son, he did so down ‘Route #66’. And the diner which Robert Indiana’s mother subsequently operated had the familiar “EAT” sign looming overhead.

After attending art school in Indianapolis when his family moved there, Robert Indiana moved on to New York in 1954 and joined the pop art movement. Using distinctive imagery drawing on commercial art approaches blended with existentialism, Robert Indiana gradually moved toward what he calls “sculptural poems”.

Robert Indiana’s most famous ‘LOVE’ pieces first appeared back in 1958, the iconography premiered in a series of poems in which Robert Indiana stacked LO and VE on top of one an another with the O tilted. The red/blue/green image was then created for a Christmas card for the Museum of Modern Art in 1964. The popular image was then put on an eight-cent US postage stamp in 1973. As well as gracing the cities of Hong Kong, Shanghai, Bangkok, Tokyo, Bilbao, Vancouver, Lisbon, Montreal and Istanbul (to name but a few) as sculptures, Robert Indiana has also developed this great timeless image into striking graphic works.

In 1973 Robert Indiana created ‘LOVE’ as the signed silkscreen print: ‘Golden Love’, edition of 150 and signed in pencil lower right Robert Indiana. So successful was this first run of signed silkscreen prints that Robert Indiana went on to create the ‘Love’ image in other graphic mediums and forms, including translating ‘Love’ into Hebrew ‘AHAVA’. The sculpture ‘AHAVA’ was created in 1977 using cor-ten steel for the Israel Museum Art Garden in Jerusalem. The screenprint was published in 1993, edition of 150 and signed lower right in pencil Robert Indiana.

Translating ‘LOVE’ into French, 1994 saw Robert Indiana exploring other graphic mediums with the creation of signed etching and aquatint print ‘AMOR’, edition of 50 and signed lower right in pencil Robert Indiana.

With the demand for the image running so high and many art enthusiasts and collectors unsuccessful in gaining a piece of this iconic image Robert Indiana went on to produce ‘Heliotherapy Love’. A series of 300 signed silkscreen prints, the crimson letters and brilliant blue and vivid green background surrounded by a bright yellow border and signed in pencil lower right Robert Indiana.

So well received was ‘Heliotherapy Love’ that the following year saw the bold and beautiful creation of ‘The Book of Love’. A stunning series of 12 signed silkscreen prints each accompanied by a short poem. ‘The Book of Love 1’ silkscreen print, edition size 200, signed lower right in pencil Robert Indiana, is a dramatic monochrome print in black and white. ‘The Book of Love 2’ silkscreen print, edition size 200, signed lower right in pencil Robert Indiana, has a brilliant blue background with bright crimson letters. ‘The Book of Love 3’ silkscreen print, edition size 200, signed lower right in pencil Robert Indiana, this print is made up of a bright blue and green background with bold red letters and is similar to the ‘Heliotherapy Love’ screenprint. ‘The Book of Love 4’ silk screen print, edition size 200, signed lower right in pencil Robert Indiana, is a beautifully subtle print of cool grey hues and white letters. ‘The Book of Love 5’ silkscreen print, edition size 200, signed lower right in pencil Robert Indiana, this print has a blue and white backdrop to scarlet letters. ‘The Book of Love 6’ silkscreen print, edition size 200, signed lower right in pencil Robert Indiana, is a four colour wave print with a blue and red background and golden yellow letters filled in with dramatic black touches. ‘The Book of Love 7’ silkscreen print, edition size 200, signed lower right in pencil Robert Indiana, has a blue and green background and scarlet letters. ‘The Book of Love 8’ silkscreen print, edition size 200, signed lower right in pencil Robert Indiana, is a cool print with a vibrant green and sky blue backdrop to ice white letters. ‘The Book of Love 9’ silkscreen print, edition size 200, signed lower right in pencil Robert Indiana, is a fiery concoction of dazzling gold letters set against a backdrop of crimson and black. ‘The Book of Love 10’ silkscreen print, edition size 200, signed lower right in pencil Robert Indiana, is a flaming array of sienna letters set off against an amber and scarlet backdrop. ‘The Book of Love 11’ silkscreen print, edition size 200, signed lower right in pencil Robert Indiana, is a pretty print of pink letters with a moss green and baby blue back ground. ‘The Book of Love 12’ silkscreen print, edition size 200, signed lower right in pencil Robert Indiana, is a bold print of crimson letters with a powder blue and emerald green backdrop.

The Millennium year saw Robert Indiana manipulate the ‘LOVE’ image into ‘2000’ with the creation of the signed etching print ‘2000’, edition size 35, signed lower right in pencil Robert Indiana.

In 2008 Robert Indiana created an image similar to ‘LOVE’, but this time showcasing the word ‘HOPE’ and donating all proceeds from the sale of the graphic prints of his image to the Barack Obama presidential campaign, raising over million dollars. The graphic works include: ‘HOPE’, serigraph screenprint, edition size 10, signed lower right in pencil Robert Indiana. A stainless steel sculpture of ‘HOPE’ was unveiled outside Denver’s Pepsi Centre during the 2008 Democratic National Convention. The Obama campaign sold T-shirts, pins, bumper stickers, posters, pins and other items adorned with ‘HOPE’. Editions of the sculpture have been released and sold internationally and Robert Indiana has called HOPE “Love’s close relative”.

In 2011 to prove that Robert Indiana’s distinctive rendering of the ‘LOVE’ image has truly stood the test of time and is still as popular and relevant today as it was back in the 1960’s, Google invited Robert Indiana to create a version for Valentines Day which was displayed in place of the search engine site’s normal logo.

The American dream has been a recurring theme in Robert Indiana’s work, and he has used it to both celebrate and criticize the national way of life. In the midst of all the gaudy, star-spangled color of The American Dream #J (1961, Museum of Modern Art), for instance, he highlights the words “Take All” and “Tilt” as reminders both of Americans’ materialism and of the tendency of some to cheat, as they do on pinball machines. In 1997 in collaboration with author and poet Robert Creeley, Robert Indiana created The ‘American Dream Portfolio’ which includes 6 hand signed silkscreen prints: ‘The Metamorphosis of Norma Jean’, edition of 395, signed lower right in pencil Robert Indiana. ‘Tilt’ edition of 395, signed lower right in pencil Robert Indiana. ‘Love’ edition of 395, signed lower right in pencil Robert Indiana. ‘Picasso’ edition of 395, signed lower right in pencil Robert Indiana. ‘One Indian Square’ edition of 395, signed lower right in pencil Robert Indiana. ‘High Ball Redball Manifest’, edition of 395, signed lower right in pencil Robert Indiana.

Robert Indiana first collaborated with Robert Creeley back in 1968 on the ‘Numbers Portfolio’, one of his first great examples of employing the vernacular form of American road and shop signs and combining them with a sophisticated formal and conceptual approach, which turns the familiar vocabulary into something entirely new. These signed prints include: ‘Zero’ edition of 10, signed by Creeley and Indiana. ‘One’, edition of 250, signed lower right in pencil Robert Indiana. ‘Two’, edition of 250, signed lower right in pencil Robert Indiana. ‘Three’, edition of 250, signed lower right in pencil Robert Indiana. ‘Four’, edition of 250, signed lower right in pencil Robert Indiana. ‘Five’, edition of 250, signed lower right in pencil Robert Indiana. ‘Six’, edition of 250, signed lower right in pencil Robert Indiana. ‘Seven’, edition of 250, signed lower right in pencil Robert Indiana. ‘Eight’, edition of 250, signed lower right in pencil Robert Indiana. ‘Nine’, edition of 250, signed lower right in pencil Robert Indiana.

Other great graphic works that imbue Robert Indiana as the pioneer of assemblage art, hard-edge abstraction and pop art are: 1975 serigraph print ‘Nonagon’, edition of 100, signed lower right in pencil Robert Indiana. 1976 serigraph print ‘The Golden Future of America’, edition of 175, signed lower right in pencil Robert Indiana. 1983 serigraph print ‘The Bridge’, edition of 250, signed lower right in pencil Robert Indiana. 2001 serigraph print ‘Marilyn’, edition of 100, signed lower right in pencil Robert Indiana. And 1991 silkscreen print ‘Eat – Menu for Chanterelle’, signed in ink Robert Indiana.

Robert Indiana’s artwork has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions around the world, and his work is included in the permanent collection of many important museums, such as the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and the Smithsonian Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C., the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas, the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, Germany, Stedelijk van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, Netherlands, the Museum Ludwig in Vienna, Austria, the Shanghai Art Museum in China, and the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Robert Indiana has also been included in numerous international publications, including a number of monographs dedicated to his work.