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Yield Brother Virgil

1966

Images

Yield Brother Virgil, a 24 by 22 inch brown painting with Virgil painted in red stenciled letters across the bottom center of the canvas. Above it is a red circle with a blue vertical band, surrounded by a lighter brown ring with the words "Yield" and "Brother" painted in a black stencil, and a black star in between the words.

Yield Brother Virgil

1966

Oil on canvas

24 × 22 in. (61 × 55.9 cm)

Grey Art Gallery, New York University Art Collection. Gift of Virgil Thomson

 

Photo: Courtesy of the Grey Art Gallery, New York University Art Collection; Artwork: © Star of Hope Foundation, Vinalhaven, Maine

The score of Virgil Thomson’s Edges: A Portrait of Robert Indiana, published by G. Schirmer, Inc. in 1966,  

The score of Virgil Thomson’s Edges: A Portrait of Robert Indiana, published by G. Schirmer, Inc. in 1966

 

Image courtesy of the Music Library Of Yale University. The Papers Of Virgil Thompson (MSS 29 And MSS 29a) at the Music Library Of Yale University. Image courtesy of the Music Library Of Yale University.

Left to right, Bill Katz, Virgil Thomson, and Robert Indiana,  

Left to right, Bill Katz, Virgil Thomson, and Robert Indiana

 

Digital image courtesy of Virgil Thomson Papers, Irving S. Gilmore Music Library of Yale University

Description

Yield Brother Virgil belongs to a series of paintings that Indiana began in 1963. The first work in this series, Yield Brother, was painted expressly for a 1963 benefit exhibition held by the Bertrand Russel Peace Foundation. This was followed by three larger diamond shaped Yield Brother paintings, as well as a number of smaller canvases, such as this one, dedicated to friends.

These symbolic portraits of friends are based on a single, fixed composition, a vertical band within a circle inscribed with the motto “Yield Brother,” and the friend’s name at the bottom of the canvas. The vertical bar inside the circle references both the cartographic plans of the Manhattan wharves found in Indiana’s The Melville Triptych (1962), and the central element of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament’s (peace) symbol, the D (for disarmament) based on the letters of the semaphore system.

Indiana painted this work for the composer Virgil Thomson, whom he met in 1964. In 1966 the two exchanged portraits, Indiana giving Thomson this painting, and Thomson composing the piano score Edges: A Portrait of Robert Indiana. In 1966 Indiana also accepted a commission to design the sets and costumes of Thomson’s opera The Mother of Us All for a performance at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.