ROBERT INDIANA (1928- ) INDIANA IN LEWISTON. 1991. 461/2x27 inches. Brand X Editions. Condition A. Paper. Signed by the artist in pencil. Born Robert Clark in New Castle, Indiana, the artist adopted the name of his home state while he was still a young man. He studied art in Indianapolis, Utica (New York) and finally at the Art Institute of Chicago. In the mid 1950s, at the suggestion of Elsworth Kelly, Indiana rented a loft amidst a growing artistic community on Coenties Slip, the southernmost part of Manhattan. Words, numbers and the eye catching boldness of America's roadsigns are the essence of his Pop Art style. This image, one of 150, is a poster based on Indiana's The Hartley Elegies: The Berlin Series. The image was "inspired by [Madsen] Hartley's colorful and bodly abstract War Motif paintings made between 1914 and 1915. Using Portrait of a German Officer as a point of departure, Indiana incorporated symbols from Hartley's personal iconography with those of his own." (Indiana p. 83). Indiana 148 (var).
