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Decade: Autoportrait 1967

1975–76

Images

Decade: Autoportrait 1967, a 72-inch square painting with a red ground and a circle containing an orange decagon dominating the canvas. In the center of the circle is a large blue, red, and orange numeral one. Painted on top of the one is a blue and red star, and on top of the star is a blue, orange, and red numeral seven. Text, arrows and numbers are painted in the spaces between the arms of the stars. On the upper right side Mother is painted in red letters, with a blue arrow to the left. A red and blue number 67 and a blue number 72 appear in the lower right. Indiana is painted in orange at the bottom of the circle, with a red star above. "Eir" is painted in red in the upper left, and "Bowery" in blue, with a red arrow to its right, appear in the lower left side.

Decade: Autoportrait 1967

1975–76

Oil on canvas

72 × 72 in. (182.9 × 182.9 cm)

 

Photo: Courtesy of Christie's, New York; Artwork: © Morgan Art Foundation Ltd./Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY

Installation view of Indiana's blue and orange polychrome aluminum sculpture SEVEN at Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Robert Indiana, SEVEN (1980–2001), installation view at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, 2022

 

Photo: © Jonty Wilde, courtesy of Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Artwork: © 2022 Morgan Art Foundation Ltd./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/DACS, London

Description

67 I was on the Bowery, which is Spring Street. My building was concurrent to both streets and E-I-R, there’s an E missing there. That is the year that I had my first representation in Ireland, in an exhibit called ROSC [Louisiana, The Brooklyn Bridge, and LOVE Wall were exhibited]. And since I am partly of Irish descent I thought that was worth noting. And Mother, I finished the Mother and Father painting in ’67, and that’s it.  

— Robert Indiana

 

Excerpt from Susan Elizabeth Ryan, interview with Robert Indiana, May 5, 1992, Robert Indiana: Figures of Speech Archive, 1987–2005.