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The Red Yield Brother IV

1964

Images

The Red Yield Brother IV, a diamond shaped painting consisting of four panels, measuring 68 by 68 inches overall. Each panel contains a yellow circle with a dark red vertical band and a dark red ring with yellow text against a lighter red ground. The text reads, clockwise from top, "Yields Sister," "Yield Father," "Yield Brother," and "Yield Mother."

The Red Yield Brother IV

1964

Oil on canvas

Four panels, overall: 68 × 68 in. (172.7 × 172.7 cm), diamond

Each panel: 34 × 34 in. (86.4 × 86.4 cm)

 

Photo: Courtesy of Christie's, New York; Artwork: © Star of Hope Foundation, Vinalhaven, Maine

Indiana with Mother and Father (1963, in an early state), Column Eat/Hug/Die (1964), Column Die (1963–64), and The Red Yield Brother IV (1964), Stable Gallery, New York, May 12–30, 1964,  

Indiana with Mother and Father (1963, in an early state), Column Eat/Hug/Die (1964), Column Die (1963–64), and The Red Yield Brother IV (1964), Stable Gallery, New York, May 12–30, 1964

 

Photo: Fred W. McDarrah/Getty Images

Description

Yield Number Four is a fragmented diamond. I broke the four shields into separate canvases so that it's four separate canvases, four diamonds, brought together to form a larger diamond. And that is going back to a harmony that I have not used since The Calumet. It will be a very red and yellow painting, no other color, so that colorwise it's entirely different, entirely different [from the earlier Yield Brother paintings].

— Robert Indiana

 

Richard Brown Baker, Oral history interview with Robert Indiana, 1963 Sept. 12–Nov. 7, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, p. 154.