Creed Gallery in Ascot, Berkshire, offers work by Robert Indiana (1928–2018), the American Pop artist best known for LOVE. Our team can advise on edition, documentation and provenance for collectors across Berkshire, Surrey and London.
About Robert Indiana
Indiana was born Robert Clark on 13 September 1928 in New Castle, Indiana, and was adopted as an infant. After service in the US Air Force he studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Skowhegan School in Maine and Edinburgh College of Art, and later took the name of his home state. He moved to New York in 1954 and from 1956 worked among the artists of Coenties Slip on the Lower Manhattan waterfront. There he made assemblages from found wood and metal, and began to use nineteenth-century brass stencils for bold numbers and charged words. MoMA acquired The American Dream, I in 1961, and his first solo New York show was at the Stable Gallery in 1962.
The Story of LOVE
The word carried spiritual weight for Indiana, who was raised in Christian Science. It first appeared in his work in 4-Star Love (1961), and by the mid-1960s he had developed the composition of L and O stacked over V and E, with the O tilted. MoMA used it for its 1965 Christmas card, his first LOVE sculpture dates to 1966–68, and it appeared on a US stamp in 1973. He made versions in other languages, including AHAVA in Hebrew and AMOR in Spanish. As is widely reported, he never copyrighted the design, so it was reproduced everywhere without his authorisation, and he saw little financial benefit.
Beyond LOVE
He consistently addressed literary, historical and political themes, in works such as The Calumet and Melville (both 1961) and his American Dream series, which uses road-sign geometry and numerals to look at American promises and contradictions. When the Whitney mounted its 2013 retrospective, curator Barbara Haskell deliberately left out the red LOVE sculptures to show the rest of his career.
Vinalhaven and Legacy
In 1978 he moved to Vinalhaven, an island off Maine, and settled in the Star of Hope, a former Odd Fellows lodge. He worked there on later series including The Hartley Elegies (1989–94) and died there on 19 May 2018. The Whitney's Robert Indiana: Beyond LOVE (2013–14) was the first US retrospective of his work in twenty-five years and the first in New York, and the Albright-Knox held a sculpture retrospective in 2018. His work is in collections including MoMA, Tate and the National Gallery of Art in Washington.
Collecting Robert Indiana at Creed Gallery
We state the medium, edition, publisher, signature and documentation for every work, and whether it was published in his lifetime. You're welcome to visit the gallery in Ascot.
Why Collect Robert Indiana
His LOVE image is among the most recognised of the twentieth century, and his wider stencilled work shows an artist who took American language and history seriously. As with any artist, individual pieces vary in demand and value, so our team is happy to talk you through the specifics of any work you're considering.
