Robert Indiana

Alfred Schmela, Dusseldorf (a gift from the artist)

Private Collection, Brussels

Sale: Sotheby's, New York, Contemporary Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, 11 September 1983, Lot 31

C&M Arts, New York

Acquired directly from the above by the present owner 

Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts Bruxelles, American Art in Belgian Collections, 1977, p. 114, illustrated; and illustrated in colour on the cover

New York, C&M Arts, Robert Indiana: Letters, Words and Numbers, 2003, n.p., no. 7, illustrated in colour

Barbara Pollack. ‘Indiana, Pacer’, Art & Auction, March 2003, p. 99, illustrated in colour

Judd Tully, ‘Second Coming’, Art & Auction, June 2003, p. 96, illustrated in colour

Colour: The colour in the catalogue illustration is fairly accurate, although the red is lighter in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. Very close inspection reveals some faint rub marks in intermittent places along all four edges and corner tips, some of which have been inpainted and fluoresce darker when examined under ultra-violet light. There is a diagonal line to the right of the V, a small dent to the top right of the L and a small spot to the bottom right of the O, all of which fluoresce darkly under ultra-violet light.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Robert Indiana’s Love is one of the most iconic artworks of the Twentieth Century, a gloriously immutable symbol of grace and goodwill that remains instantly recognisable worldwide. Its bright primary colours appear solid in their stencilled flatness; graphic and impactful in their own right and for the powerful word that they spell out. The only moment of discordance within this bold blockish composition is the ‘O’, which tips jauntily away from its fellow characters. Its roundness and diagonal prominence seem to suggest the tick-tock of a clock face, simultaneously making reference to the endless passage of time, and the eternal transcendence of this emblematic word.

One of the abiding themes of Indiana’s career has been his fascination with signs and their place within a social and historical context. His earliest works were inspired by commercial signage, in particular the stencilled letters found on packaging, and the Love series was a direct heir to his realisation of the graphic potential of the sign: divorced from their everyday meaning by prolonged study and removed from their original context, numbers and letters acquired a form of artistic beauty as shapes and silhouettes in their own right. Indiana referred to this concept in direct connection with Love: “In a sense… I got down to the subject matter of my work… The subject is defined by its expression in the word itself… Love is purely a skeleton of all that word has meant in all the erotic and religious aspects of the theme, and to bring it down to the actual structure of the calligraphy [is to reduce it] to the bare bones” (Robert Indiana quoted in: Theresa Brakely, Ed., Robert Indiana, New York 1990, p. 168). Viewed in this light, Love becomes almost abstract in nature, a bold stamp of sinuous curves deployed in conjunction with sharp straight lines to create an object of lyrical beauty and harmonious balance. Ed Ruscha forms a worthy artistic comparison, an artist who similarly allows text to drift apart from its symbolic meaning and to carry weight as much as an aesthetic motif of formalist beauty as a linguistic symbol of emotive import.

Indiana later recalled the genesis of the Love series, referencing the spiritual elements behind the creation of its earliest manifestations: “The reason I became so involved in [it] is that it is so much a part of the peculiar American environment, particularly in my own background, which was Christian Scientist. ‘God is Love’ is spelled out in every church” (Ibid., p. 154). Love can thus be seen as an affectionate homage to the childhood influences Indiana encountered whilst living in the state from whence he adopted his name; indeed, the first commission he received on the theme, in 1964, was to create an image for a museum in a converted church. The resulting work, Love is God, neatly inverted the message from the religious signboards that had made such an impact on the young Indiana. It was only a short developmental step after this to the discovery of the eponymous square Love motif, which was first exhibited in 1966 and quickly achieved immense popularity. The quadrilateral Love seemed to tap into the cultural zeitgeist of the times, paralleling the rise of hippie culture and the corresponding liberation of social mores, a shaking off of prior conventions that culminated in the so called ‘Summer of Love’ in 1967. Yet whilst the ideas of ‘free love’ and ‘flower power’ are now somewhat dated, Indiana’s Love remains a timeless symbol of a universal concept, one to which the entire condition of humanity continues to aspire.