Robert Indiana was born in 1928 in Indiana and studied art in several schools and colleges between 1945-1954, including the Chicago Art Institute and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. He settled in New York in the 1950s where he began making sculptures and paintings inspired by signs, machines, and commercial designs. In the 1960s he developed his signature style using vivid colors, letters, words, and numbers. He became known for sculptures and prints featuring the word "LOVE". Indiana considered himself a "painter of signs" and his works used symbolic shapes and colors to comment on personal and cultural history in an accessible yet thought-provoking way.

1. Sculpture Handout:
Robert Indiana
Born in 1928 at New Castle, Indiana, as Robert Clark. Between 1945 and 1948 he studied at art schools
in Indianapolis and Utica, and from 1949 to 1953 at the Chicago Art Institute School and the Skowhgan
School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine. In 1953 and 1954 he studied at the Edinburgh College of Art
and London University, after which he settled in New York. He took up contact with the painters Kelly,
Smith and Youngerman. His early works were inspired by traffic signs, automatic amusement machines,
commercial stencils and old trade names. In the early sixties he did sculpture assemblages and
developed his style of vivid color surfaces, involving letters, words and numbers. In 1966 he had
exhibitions in Düsseldorf, Eindhoven (Van Abbemuseum), Krefeld (Museum Haus Lange) and Stuttgart
(Württembergische Kunstverein). He was represented at the Documenta "4" Exhibition, Kassel, in 1968.
He became known for silkscreen prints, posters and sculptures which took the word LOVE as their
theme. The brash directness of these works stemmed from their symmetrical arrangements of color and
form.
Robert Indiana is, by his own admission, a painter of signs. His signs are more intrinsically signals than
signs. Donald Goodall writes that "in the end Indiana's signals, all matter-of-fact and plainspoken at first,
become elusive and suggestive of personal and public history... We look again, hard. And think about
what the shapes have said." Indiana's "words... circles, squares and rectangles, and colors which begin in
the sign-painter's kit" assume "unexpected brilliance or sensitivity, as these are put in their new
universe." They possess "the authority of the irreducible. The most familiar images change character as
we inspect this symbiosis of reality and remembered experiences, of the prosaic and speculative."
Goodall suggests that Indiana's forms seem autobiographical, recalling "visual experiences as a child
which are alive in his mind," experiences that the artist "equates with that optimistic illusion of hopeful
generations, the American Dream." Nevertheless, the painting's "symbolic implication is not available to
fast-transit comprehension. The sign says what it is. Well and good. But the inner-content of Indiana's
signals, carefully planned and executed with artisan's skills, is sibylline." (The location of this quote is no
longer online so the original source is unknown. Current online sources are quoted from this page on
IAD.)
Examples of Robert Indiana’s work

2. Assignment:
Thumbnail Sketches Instructions: Create original logo designs using the initials of your name as a
foundation. You will draw 3 thumbnail sketches (4 inches by 4 inches in sketchbook). Link, interlock and
exaggerate the letters until they form an interesting abstract design. You will then take the best
abstract design that represents your logo and express it three-dimensionally using cardboard
(100pts). You will be given a sheet of gray cardboard (bonus for bringing in cardboard and masking
tape) that you must, cut, score, fold and construct into a fully three-dimensional, in-the-round sculpture
of your logo. The completed piece should measure no higher than 2ft. (61 cm) in any direction.
You will be creating 2 Pages of Visual/Verbal research in Sketchbook
embellished with designs, color, fancy lettering etc…
#1. Read Robert Indiana Bio.
#2. Gather information in Computer lab to be used in sketchbook research pages:
3 different Font Examples/ 3 images of his art work / FAQs from bio page
 1 fact page in
your sketchbook
titled Robert
Indiana.
 Create 3
thumbnail
sketches with 2-3
reference photos
on the other
page. See
example
100 pts
The criteria for assessing the completed pieces will be:
· Research/Design
· Construction & Safety
· Surface Embellishment
· Craftsmanship/Following Directions
· Effort/Attitude