1. Robert Indiana sent these cards to several friends and acquaintances in the art world.
26 Facts About Robert Indiana
1. 2.
In 1965, Robert Indiana was invited to propose an artwork to be featured on the Museum of Modern Art's annual Christmas card.
3.
Robert Indiana continued to develop his LOVE series, and in 1966, worked with Marian Goodman of Multiples, Inc to make his first LOVE sculpture in aluminum.
4.
Robert Indiana has been a focal point of the LGBTQ rights movement after it was disclosed that his famous LOVE artwork was the result of the breakup between him and artist Ellsworth Kelly, who notably, inspired Robert Indiana's style of work.
5.
Robert Indiana's artwork has been featured in numerous exhibitions around the world and is included in the permanent collections of many major museums including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate Modern, London; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
6.
Robert Indiana was born Robert Clark in New Castle, Indiana, and was adopted as an infant by Earl Clark and Carmen Watters.
7.
Robert Indiana returned to the United States in 1954 and settled in New York City.
8.
Robert Indiana's career took off in the early 1960s after Alfred H Barr Jr.
9.
In 1964, Robert Indiana moved from Coenties Slip to a five-story building at Spring Street and the Bowery.
10.
Robert Indiana was drawn to the Odd Fellows insignia which consists of three interlocking links.
11.
Robert Indiana discovered a great affinity to Marsden Hartley to whom he pays homage in a series of work in the late 1980s.
12.
When Elisofon died in 1973, Robert Indiana bought the lodge for $10,000 from his estate.
13.
Robert Indiana moved in full-time when he lost his lease on the Bowery in 1978.
14.
Robert Indiana died on May 19,2018, at his home in Vinalhaven, Maine, of respiratory failure at the age of 89.
15.
Robert Indiana's best known examples include short words like EAT, DIE, HUG, ERR, and LOVE.
16.
Between 1989 and 1994, Robert Indiana painted a series of 18 canvases inspired by the shapes and numbers in the War Motif paintings that Marsden Hartley did in Berlin between 1913 and 1915.
17.
Robert Indiana was the star of Andy Warhol's film Eat, which is a 45-minute film of Indiana eating a mushroom.
18.
Kelly quickly convinced Robert Indiana to move into 25 Coenties Slip, better known as The Slip, where several other artists would later follow including Kelly himself.
19.
The iconography first appeared in a series of poems originally written in 1958, in which Robert Indiana stacked LO and VE on top of one another.
20.
Not only did he change his name to avoid confusion with other artists, but Robert Indiana fell in love with Kelly.
21.
Robert Indiana said he was inspired to use these colors because his father used to work at a Phillips 66 gas station whose colors were green and red.
22.
Robert Indiana described the original colors as "the red and green of that sign against the blue Hoosier sky".
23.
The colours that dominate Robert Indiana's love painting are the most prominent colours featured in Kelly's work.
24.
Robert Indiana said, "Ellsworth Kelly introduced me to Hard-Edge and was a great influence on my work, and is responsible for my being here".
25.
In 1973, the United States Postal Service commissioned a stamp design by Robert Indiana and released the eight-cent LOVE stamp in advance of Valentine's Day.
26.
Robert Indiana's work has been represented by Paul Kasmin Gallery in New York City, Waddington Custot in London and Galerie Gmurzynska in Europe.