The first print retrospective of Robert Indiana’s powerful graphic work in more than 40 years will premiere in the state whose name he adopted as his own.

The Essential Robert Indiana will re-affirm the artist’s role as one of the premiere printmakers in modern art and demonstrate the importance of his graphic works in the context of his larger career. The exhibition – featuring more than 50 works, including 20 from the IMA’s own collection – is organized with the active participation of the artist and presents a uniquely autobiographical approach to Indiana’s work that has never before been explored in depth.

The Essential Robert Indiana explores the stories behind many of Indiana’s most iconic works for the first time, using material drawn from extensive oral and video interviews with the artist to uncover new meanings and complexities. The 57 prints featured in the exhibition include his “American Dream” series and his homages to such painters as Picasso, Charles Demuth and Marsden Hartley. The exhibition will also include several examples of Indiana’s famed “LOVE", an image that began as a Christmas card design and morphed into the most recognizable of Indiana’s images—and one of the most iconic images in the history of American art. While Indiana’s “LOVE” has taken many forms, the most common colors used are red, green, and blue, inspired by the colors of the Phillips 66 gasoline station signs, the company for which his father worked in the 1930s, and the blue of the Hoosier sky. The exhibition will also feature 21 “autoportraits” made by the artist over the course of his career that use symbols and forms related directly to his location, sources of inspiration, and state of mind at the time they were made.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a 152-page, fully illustrated monograph that includes an essay by John Wilmerding, a former curator and professor at Princeton. Copublished with Del Monico/Prestel, the catalogue will feature a series of 1960s portraits of Robert Indiana taken by photographer William John Kennedy, including some images published for the first time. It will also feature individual decodings of Indiana’s prints by exhibition curator Martin Krause as revealed to him through continuing conversations with the artist.

This exhibition is made possible by generous support from Barnes & Thornburgh, LLP and the Morgan Art Foundation.

Robert Indiana Education Supporters underwrite all public programs, educational outreach, and gallery experiences related to The Essential Robert Indiana.