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Decade: Autoportrait 1968

1975–76

Images

Decade: Autoportrait 1968, a 72 inch square painting with a red ground with a circle containing a blue decagon dominating the canvas. In the center of the circle is a large brown, black, and magenta numeral one. Painted on top of the one is a brown, black, and magenta star, and on top of the star is a red and magenta numeral eight. Text, arrows and numbers are painted in the spaces between the arms of the stars. On the right side Colorado is painted in red letters, with a red arrow covering part of the letters D and O. Below the arrow is a black 72. Indiana is painted in blue at the bottom of the circle, with a red 68 above. "Asp" is painted in red in the upper left, and "Bouwerie" in red, with a magenta arrow to its right, appear in the lower left side.

Decade: Autoportrait 1968

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

Announcement card for the exhibition Indiana: Summer in Aspen, August 18, 1968, at the Aspen Center for Contemporary Art, Colorado,  

Announcement card for the exhibition Indiana: Summer in Aspen, August 18, 1968, at the Aspen Center for Contemporary Art, Colorado

 

Image courtesy of the Music Library Of Yale University. From the Papers Of Virgil Thompson (MSS 29 And MSS 29a) at the Music Library Of Yale University

Description

 . . in ’68 I was artist in residence in Aspen, Colorado. And of course the EN gets lost behind the 8 and gives me the chance to use ASP as sort of fun. I consider 8 too, since it is a double 4, a kind of dangerous, all devouring kind of—it’s a gluttonous, a gluttonous number. And here I use the Dutch spelling of Bowery which was appropriate because it used to be spelled that way. 

— Robert Indiana

 

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