Decade: Autoportrait '74 (Hurricane) is a print from Indiana’s Decade: Autoportraits, Vinalhaven Suite. The print mirrors the format of his Decade: Autoportrait paintings, which the artist created in the 1970s. The paintings are a portrait of his life in the 1960s, and include references to important names, places, and events. The basic format is the same in each: a large circle set in a square canvas, with five points of a star touching the circle’s rim, and within the circle Indiana’s familiar stencil-shaped words and numbers.
The Decade: Autoportraits, Vinalhaven Suite prints, which Indiana created after moving permanently to Vinalhaven, Maine, in 1969, are a record of his life in the 1970s. The artist had been visiting the island yearly since 1969, typically spending several months in the fall working in the Star of Hope Lodge.
Indiana penned a statement explaining each individual print:
"In 1974 I paid my first visit to this off-shore island [Hurricane] which yielded granite in former times but is now a base for the Outward Bound school. Two companions on this visit were Virgil and 'Goodtime.' On my fourth visit to the Caribbean I ate often a restaurant called Majolie, but it is also a word in my portrait of Picasso, recently painted at that time, for it was one of his favorite words, too."