Scroll down to view all 12 portfolio screenprints.
LOVE (portfolio of 12, with poems), 1996, screenprints in color,
24 x 20 inches. Edition of 200. Price on request
PROVENANCE
Conceived in a time when the United States was consumed by the Vietnam War, LOVE became a symbol for Peace. This famous sculpture is one of the most celebrated works within the pop art movement as well the art world as a whole.
LOVE has been a fixture in the art of Robert Indiana. Its form and structure have changed significantly throughout the years from 1958-1966 and even through to today. The iconography first appeared in a series of poems originally written in 1958, in which Indiana stacked LO and VE on top of one another. The first LOVE sculpture was carved out of a solid block of aluminum, highly unpolished, that the pop artist had made for a show at the Stable Gallery in 1966. The idea for the sculptural piece originated from a visit to a Christian Science church in Indianapolis, where Robert was taken by an adorned banner that read "GOD is LOVE." He then created a painting for an exhibition held in what was formerly a Christian Science church. It depicted the reverse of the previous banner, stating "LOVE is GOD."
Few Pop images are more widely recognized than Indiana's LOVE. Originally designed as a Christmas card commissioned by The Museum of Modern Art in 1965, LOVE has appeared in prints, paintings, sculptures, banners, rings, tapestries, and stamps. Full of erotic, religious, autobiographical, and political underpinnings-especially when it was co-opted as an emblem of 1960s idealism-LOVE is both accessible and complex in meaning. In printed works, Indiana has rendered LOVE in a variety of colors, compositions, and techniques. He even translated it into Hebrew for a print and a sculpture at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Once co-opted by the Youth Movement, LOVE has evolved over time into a universally recognized, ageless icon.