Works by Robert Indiana at Surovek Gallery

Robert Indiana died on May 19, at age 89, at his home in Vinalhaven, Maine, where he had lived for forty years. The house itself has been neglected, with holes in the roof, buckets collecting water and pigeons living inside. Robert Indiana’s dream was to turn the 12-room mansion into a museum, where his artwork could be displayed.

From the outside, with peeling paint and the windows boarded up, the condition of the home would suggest that Indiana couldn’t afford repairs, but according to recent testimony in probate court suggests that Indiana’s estate is worth around $60 million. The estate is in legal limbo, with Indiana’s lawyer, caretaker and agents vying, and trying, to sort out the estate’s finances.

Robert Indiana Retrospective at the Tampa Museum of Art

The Tampa Museum of Art is holding a retrospective of Robert Indiana’s sculptures, paintings, drawings and prints, reflecting a career that spanned fifty-years.

Robert Indiana: A Sculpture Retrospective includes later, lesser-known works and marble LOVE sculptures that have never before been exhibited. The exhibition, organized by the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York will be on view October 25, 2018 through March 17, 2019.

The Works of Robert Indiana at Surovek Gallery

Robert Indiana was best known for his iconic LOVE series. His works explore the American experience, using everyday objects and a universal language that made him one of the most beloved artists of our time. We are able to offer two of Indiana’s most interesting and personal works in our gallery.

Robert Indiana: The Hartley Elegies: The Berlin Series, KVFl

Robert Indiana’s series of homages to artist Marsden Hartley was based on Indiana’s wish to revive interest in a Maine artist who, Indiana said, was, “all but forgotten and neglected." Marsden Hartley was born, and died, in Maine. He traveled to Paris in 1912, where he moved in the same circles as Picasso and Matisse. He also met Karl von Freyburg, a cousin of German sculptor, Arnold Rönnebeck.

Hartley moved to Berlin in 1913, where Freyburg was living, just before the start of World War l. Freyburg, was a lieutenant in the German army, who died in October 1914, an early casualty of the war. Portrait of a German Officer is Hartley’s commemorative image of von Freyburg.

Robert Indiana created a series, based on the series made by Hartley in Germany. Von Freyburg’s initials, Kv.F are included in both paintings, as are the number 24, which was Freyburg’s age at the time of his death.

“Hartley did about fifty or so works in his Berlin series.” Indiana said, in a 1991 interview, “I base mine on the examples in American museums like the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. and the Whitney and Metropolitan museums in New York. I use elements of these paintings. His colors are strong and forthright, there’s no enormous nuance to deal with. Where nuances do exist, I eliminate them and transform his works into my own terms: hard edge and flat color. Some of mine are designed directly from his paintings, others I have recomposed. But then, as my own series progresses, the Hartley’s become less Hartley, and more Indiana.”

Robert Indiana: Picasso

Pablo Picasso was one of Indiana’s favorite artists and his homage to Picasso reflects both artists’ use of words and numbers in their work. Like Indiana, who was born Robert Clark and changed his name to his home state of Indiana, Picasso was born Pablo Ruiz Picasso and dropped the Ruiz to become Picasso. The back-to-back Ps reflect the palindrome of Picasso’s birth year, 1881.

Both The Hartley Elegies: The Berlin Series, KVF l and Picasso are available at Surovek Gallery. Please contact us if you would like more information about the works of Robert Indiana or any of the other fine works available at the Surovek Gallery.