Robert Indiana

Morgan Art Foundation, Geneva (acquired directly from the artist)
Acquired by the present owner from the above in July 2011

This work is in very good and sound condition overall. The colors are bright, fresh and clean.
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"Come on people now
smile on your brother
everybody get together
and try to love one another right now"
The Youngbloods, Get Together, 1967

With its bold typographic design and alluring unmodulated patina, this 'one-word poem', as the artist himself fondly termed it, is arresting in its visual effect. The bright and appealing colors are symbolic of the artist's home state of Indiana, combining the fire engine red from the logo of the Phillips 66 gasoline company (where the artist's father had worked during the Great Depression) with the vivid blue of the expansive mid-western skies. The Love series was conceived in 1966 and debuted at the Eleanor Ward Stable Gallery's "Love Show" which marked the beginning of a prolific period of Indiana's career closely tied to the 1960s counterculture and fascination with four letter words.

The omnipresence of Indiana's Love can be seen walking down the streets of major cities from Manhattan to Tokyo. In fact, other iterations of this sculpture exist in Italian and Hebrew, reaching an undoubtedly global audience, but always maintaining the two by two square, block letter construction. Despite the geometric clarity of Love, the symbolic connotations of the word transcend the abstract quality of its form. Love is not only representative of a watershed moment in Indiana's career but also of a pivotal moment in American history; a time when the term was appropriated and taken far beyond the world of galleries and museums. Although the Love works are exhibited globally, there is a uniquely American quality about them. In an era dominated by the fight for civil rights, nuclear disarmament and the Vietnam War, Indiana's Love captured the imagination of the flower children generation who embraced it as an emblem of 1960s idealism.

Indiana's signature Love is a uniquely poetic work in the artist's oeuvre that came to embody this defining moment in American history. Just as the Summer of Love of 1967 encapsulates the liberal revolution of the 1960s, Love speaks to that same moment of cultural transformation. The backdrop of the politically-charged 1960s America certainly played a significant role in Indiana’s work during this time. 1966, the year of this work’s conception, was a period of social and political upheaval: America was still reeling from the effects of World War II, grappling with the Cold War, preparing for the Vietnam War, and experiencing uprisings from marginalized groups in the Women’s and Civil Rights movements. Famously active in civil rights and war protests, Indiana's Love exists as a political statement for peace and love.

In this contentious era, the Love sculpture served as a beacon of hope and reminder of humanity, and still today, we can just as easily adopt the sculpture’s universal message to our modern day political and humanitarian struggles. Love has transcended the 60's and taken on new meaning with each successive decade. It continues to evolve as a cultural symbol. At once both ubiquitous and rare, all 8 feet of the monumental four blue and red letters, Love, is quite literally a trophy of American art.