Please view the details of “Classic Love” by Robert Indiana
An artwork by famous American pop art artist Robert Indiana, who played a central role in the development of assemblage art, hard-edge painting. As poet Robert Creeley wrote about the artist: “He has used the figure of language and number to echo endlessly the paradigms of human emotions and made LOVE an international sign of transcendent power”. This piece is the part of the Love series, which made him famous in 1966. The word love first appeared in the painting 4-Star Love (1961). Love was a central and very spiritually significant theme for Indiana.
Words
Since the beginning of the career, Robert Indiana (Clark) developed an interest in the incorporation of words within sculptures and paintings. Especially, the English word LOVE written in capital letters has the letter O inverted, so that it adjoins V, creating a sense of asymmetry as a reference to the instability of love. It first appeared on a MoMA Christmas card in 1964, then sculpted in 1970 and printed on a U.S. Postal Service eight-cent postage stamp in 1973. Later, the word LOVE was made in the form of objects installed in many cities around the world. Moreover, it became to be a true pop icon of the 1960s.
Also, interestingly, as the artist said: “I was trying to reduce the word to its essence. In the most meaningful and recognizable way. The angled O is not my invention. It has been used often over time, in different places, several times. It is a typographical game. It simply seemed to me that it could make the word more dynamic”.
Besides, other important works by Indiana deal with matters and words of Hope and Eat/Die.
Kings Gallery is a leading fine art gallery established in Jerusalem in 1995. With over 20 years of experience, we strive to collect and sell the highest quality historic and contemporary Israeli and International art. The gallery specializes on artists from the early period of the 1920’s. We have a large variety of original works and lithographs by leading Jewish, Israeli, and international artists. In addition, Kings Gallery features leading up-and-coming young artists who will definitely be prominent names in the next few years.
