ROBERT INDIANA (1928-2018)

Robert Indiana (1928–2018) was an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker closely associated with Pop Art and best known for his iconic LOVE imagery. Born Robert Clark in New Castle, Indiana, he later adopted the name of his home state as his professional identity. After serving in the U.S. Army Air Forces, he studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and Edinburgh College of Art before settling in New York in the mid-1950s.

Indiana’s work is characterized by bold color, simplified forms, and the use of text, numbers, and symbols drawn from American road signs, commercial graphics, and popular culture. While often grouped with Pop artists, his art also reflects personal symbolism and a strong engagement with language and identity. His LOVE motif, first created in the early 1960s, became one of the most recognizable images in modern art and was widely disseminated in paintings, sculptures, prints, and public commissions.

In the late 1970s, Indiana withdrew from the New York art world and moved to Vinalhaven, Maine, where he lived and worked in relative isolation for decades. He died in 2018 and is remembered as a pivotal figure in American art whose work bridged Pop Art, abstraction, and poetic symbolism.