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Source I

1959

Images

Source I, a painting of a black avocado seed shape surrounded by green and blue planes of color against a white background

Source I

1959

Oil on Homasote

46 1/8 × 61 1/2 in. (117.2 × 156.2 cm)

 

Photo: Dennis and Diana Griggs, Maine. Courtesy of the Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine; Artwork: © Star of Hope Foundation, Vinalhaven, Maine

A black and white image of Robert Indiana's journal page for January 24, 1959, which contains a sketch of his painting Source, I

Robert Indiana's journal page for January 24, 1959

 

Photo: Tad Beck; Courtesy Star of Hope Foundation, Vinalhaven, Maine

Robert indiana's journal entry for January 30, 1959. In this entry he illustrates Source I in a vertical orientation, noting that in this position "the image becomes to look like half a Greek mask",  

Robert indiana's journal entry for January 30, 1959. In this entry he illustrates Source I in a vertical orientation, noting that in this position "the image becomes to look like half a Greek mask"

 

Courtesy Star of Hope Foundation, Vinalhaven, Maine

Description

I proceeded this morning to encloak this form: the source egg, within a shell, an investment of that inner vacuum or yolk: fluid be it whichever it is, and creating the crucial form of the painting which is yet, at noon, undecided . . . I am staying true to my own organic form . . . I am very excited, really agitated, with its progress which is really flowing today . . . I think that I shall have the underpainting of this — ‘The Source’ — finished today, forever obscuring my one female painting, but somehow very much including her and incorporating the essence.

— Robert Indiana

 

Excerpt from artist’s journal, dated January 24, 1959.