Robert Indiana (1928 - 2018)

For Flag Day, it seems appropriate to remember renowned artist Robert Indiana.  Like the American flag, Indiana’s rendering of the word “Love” in block letters, two over two with that tilted “O” has become an iconic, ubiquitous symbol on stamps, greeting cards and sculptures, displayed in more than 50 cities worldwide. Born Robert Clark and raised in Indianapolis, he moved to New York in 1954, where he changed his surname as a homage to his roots and his American subject matter. There with his lover Ellsworth Kelly and other gay artists Agnes Martin, Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, he blazed a trail that led to the Pop and Minimalist Art of the Sixties. When New York’s Museum of Modern Art commissioned him to create a Christmas Card in 1965, Indiana fashioned  “LOVE,” an image inspired by “God is Love” inscriptions from the churches of his youth, utilizing the colors of Philips 66 gasoline signs of that period. Indiana retreated from the New York art scene in 1978, choosing the remote Maine island of Vinalhaven as his refuge for the rest of his life.  Today, his studio and sanctuary in a former Odd Fellows lodge houses the Star of Hope Foundation that he established before his death to manage his estate and support arts education and working artists in Maine. ​