Robert Indiana’s Hartley Elegies (1989–94) is a series of 18 paintings inspired by Marsden Hartley’s War Motif series, which Hartley executed as a tribute to the young German soldier Karl von Freyburg, who died during World War I and with whom Hartley had a deep friendship. KvF XI is one of three paintings in Indiana’s series that employs a grisaille palette. Like the two other grisaille works, KvF IV and KvF XVI, it takes Hartley’s Painting, Number 5 (1914–15) as its model. The circle dominating the diamond shaped canvas is nearly identical to the circle in KvF IV, and the ring surrounding the circle contains the same text, the names of five places where Hartley lived, two of them places Indiana also called home. References to place are an important element of Indiana’s work, and here highlight a point of intersection between the two artists’ lives. New York and Berlin occupy the top of the ring; the other three are cities in Maine. Lewiston is the town where Hartley was born, and Ellsworth the town where he died. Vinalhaven is of particular significance in that not only did both men live there, but soon after moving there in 1978 Indiana discovered that a building he used for storage had been Hartley’s studio, and it is in Vinalhaven that Indiana conceived of and painted the Hartley Elegies. To the right and left of the circle are Hartley and von Freyburg’s initials, a tribute to the relationship between the two men.
KvF XI is currently on display in Robert Indiana: The Sweet Mystery, at the Procuratie Vecchie, Venice.