INDIANA, ROBERT

* 13.09.1928 New Castle, † 19.05.2018 Vinalhaven

The American artist Robert Indiana played a central role in the development of Assemblage Art, Hard-Edge Painting and Pop Art. He was born Robert Clark on 13 September 1928 in New Castle, Indiana, and was adopted shortly afterwards. In 1942, he moved to Indianapolis, where he attended Arsenal Technical High School. After graduating, he spent three years in the US Air Force and then studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine and the Edinburgh College of Art in Scotland. He returned to the USA in 1954, settled in New York City and soon joined the circle of artists around Ellsworth Kelly. Describing himself as a sign painter, he drew endless inspiration not only from his fellow artists, but also from the commercial culture of America with its advertising posters, consumer goods logos, myths and dreams.

At the end of the 1950s, Indiana created an unprecedented visual language of large block-like geometric shapes, letters and numbers, which he designed in various fonts and colours. Together with Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg and Roy Lichtenstein, he soon became one of the leading figures of the new Pop Art trend. His paintings with the famous LOVE motif, created from the mid-1960s onwards, made Indiana world-famous. Until his death in 2018, Robert Indiana lived and worked on the island of Vinalhaven in the state of Maine. His works are exhibited in renowned museums and galleries worldwide.