Robert Indiana

Robert Indiana, original name Robert Clark, (September 1928, New Castle, Indiana, U.S.— May, 2018, Vinalhaven, Maine), is an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker closely associated with the Pop Art movement.

After serving three years in the US Air Force, Indiana studied graphics and painting at the Art Institute of Chicago in the 40s. He later moved to New York, where he became famous for his iconic art that often focused on signs that he saw anywhere around him. He used to describe his own work as painting of signs, as he liked to explore the contextual power of words, their meanings, and references. One of Indiana’s most iconic works is a sculpture titled LOVE, at first created for the Christmas card of the Museum of Modern Art in 1965. This was the basis for his 1970 Love sculpture and the widely distributed 1973 United States Postal Service "LOVE" stamp. His work was exhibited in numerous individual and collective shows across the globe, and his oeuvre is in the permanent collections of important museums like the MoMA and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Smithsonian Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C., the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, Germany, the Museum Ludwig in Vienna, Austria, and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.