Robert Indiana’s Decade: Autoportrait paintings are a series of autobiographical portraits that he began in 1971. The works, which the artist considered a throwback to his American Dream series, consist of three groups of ten paintings in different sizes: 24-, 48-, and 72-inches. The 24- and 48-inch works made their debut in Robert Indiana: New Paintings and Sculpture, held at the Galerie Denise René, New York, November 22–December 30, 1972.
The series provides a portrait of his life in the 1960s, and includes references to important names, places, and events. 1966 was the year of Indiana's "LOVE" show at the Stable Gallery—all of the works in the show were painted in red, blue, and green, reflected in the artist's choice of colors for Decade: Autoportrait 1966. The show took place in the spring of that year, so the word "spring" can be seen as a reference to that as well as to Spring Street, where Indiana had moved year before. The word "hug," which first appeared in Indiana's work in a 1962 painting, is a word the artist associated with love; in a 1969 lecture at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture he noted that in his family “hug” was a substitute for “love”: “no one ever spoke of love in my family. They would hug each other, but never really love each other.”
Decade: Autoportrait 1966 is currently on display at the Pace Gallery, Hong Kong, in Robert Indiana: The Shape of the World.