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The Calumet

1961

Images

A red 90 by 84 inch canvas titled "The Calumet." A large circle containing seven smaller circles dominates the canvas. The seven smaller circles each hold an orange star, and are surrounded by the names of different Native American tribes painted in red stenciled letters in an outer yellow ring. A yellow ring encloses the large circle, and contains the red stenciled text "On the mountains of the prairie Gitche Manito the mighty called the tribes of men together."

The Calumet

1961

Oil on canvas

90 × 84 in. (228.6 × 213.4 cm)

Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts. Gevirtz-Mnuchin Purchase Fund (1962.77)

 

Photo: Courtesy of the Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University; Artwork: © Morgan Art Foundation Ltd./Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY

Robert Indiana's journal entry for July 12, 1961, featuring an early black and white sketch of the painting The Calumet

Robert Indiana's journal entry for July 12, 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 featuring one wooden sculpture and five paintings.

Installation view of Robert Indiana: Beyond LOVE, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, September 26, 2013–January 5, 2014

 

Photo: Tom Powel Imaging

Description

. . . Calumet is a town in Indiana in relation to Chicago and I was struck by that coincidence . . . then I went into heroics and The Calumet is a heroic painting. It isn’t about geography, it’s about Longfellow and the Hiawatha and the continent’s first citizens and again a great tragedy.

— Robert Indiana

 

Excerpt from Susan Elizabeth Ryan, interview with Robert Indiana, November 14, 1991, Robert Indiana: Figures of Speech Archive, 1987–2005.