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The American Dream, I

1960–61

Images

A 72 by 60 inch primarily black and brown painting with two rows of two orbs, each containing a star, as well as references to major American highways and pinball machines. The work's title, "The American Dream," appears in multicolored stenciled letters in a ring around the lower right hand orb

The American Dream, I

1960–61

Oil on canvas

72 × 60 1/8 in. (182.9 × 152.7 cm)

The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Larry Aldrich Foundation Fund, 1961

 

Photo: Courtesy of Art Resource, New York; Artwork: © Morgan Art Foundation Ltd./Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY

Detail from Robert Indiana's journal entry for March 19, 1961; most of the page is occupied by a color sketch of the painting The American Dream, I

Detail from Robert Indiana's journal entry for March 19, 1961

 

Courtesy Star of Hope Foundation, Vinalhaven, Maine

Installation view of Robert Indiana: Beyond LOVE, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, September 26, 2013–January 5, 2014. Left to right, The American Dream, I (1960–61), The Rebecca (1962), Ahab (1960–62), and The Triumph of Tira (1960–62),  

Installation view of Robert Indiana: Beyond LOVE, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, September 26, 2013–January 5, 2014. Left to right, The American Dream, I (1960–61), The Rebecca (1962), Ahab (1960–62), and The Triumph of Tira (1960–62)

 

Photo: Tom Powel Imaging

Description

The idea of the first Dream happened very early on. It’s a pivotal canvas and a crucial one to me. It changed the entire course of my life, and forms a bridge with my earlier work. My paintings now tend to be very bright and high-colored. The Dream is still dark, and full of the blackness of the paintings I did when I was very depressed on my arrival in New York. It’s a comment on the superficiality of American life; its images are taken from pin-ball machines and the neon glare and the road signs of America. When I did that painting, I had no idea its theme would occupy most of my life.

— Robert Indiana

 

Marius B. Péladeau and Martin Dibner, Indiana's Indianas: A Twenty-Year Retrospective of Paintings and Sculpture from the Collection of Robert Indiana (Rockland, Maine: William A. Farnsworth Library and Art Museum, 1982), p. 5.