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Four

1964–65

Images

A 60 by 50 inch brown canvas dominated by a yellow numeral four within a red circle with a blue outline. Below the circe the painting's title, "Four," is painted in yellow letters.

Four

1964–65

Oil on canvas

60 × 50 in. (152.4 × 127 cm)

Kunst- und Museumsverein in Von der Heydt-Museum Wuppertal

 

Photo: Courtesy of the Von der Heydt-Museum, Wuppertal; Artwork: © Morgan Art Foundation Ltd./Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY

Installation view of Robert Indiana: Number Paintings at the Museum Haus Lange Krefeld, in Krefeld, Germany, June 11–July 24, 1966. Left to right, Three (1965), Three (1964–65), and Four (1964–65),  

Installation view of Robert Indiana: Number Paintings at the Museum Haus Lange Krefeld, in Krefeld, Germany, June 11–July 24, 1966. Left to right, Three (1965), Three (1964–65), and Four (1964–65)

 

Photo: ©Kunstmuseen Krefeld–Artothek

Description

Arthur Carr: Do you have any other thoughts on these number paintings?

Robert Indiana: . . . Of course, since they are very recent paintings I’m very close to them right now. They are some of the most, some of the favorite things that I have done. I would say that they were the hardest paintings, just from a technical standpoint.

Carr: Most difficult to do?

Indiana: They are the most difficult paintings that I’ve done yet because they involved long, unbroken areas of a single color, which requires a certain demand in brushwork and so forth, which is difficult and which most of my painting does not require. Only the backgrounds in my paintings present the same problem as all of the areas of these, in that there are no cut-off places. The areas continue for a long area and this becomes, this becomes difficult.

 

Arthur C. Carr, “The Reminiscences of Robert Indiana,” New York, November 1965, Arthur C. Carr papers; Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library, p. 103.