Photo: Jody Dole; Courtesy Star of Hope Foundation, Vinalhaven, Maine
Robert Indiana kept a series of illustrated journals during the late 1950s and 1960s, in which he discusses the development of his work as well as his daily life on Coenties Slip.
In his entry for January 15, 1962, Indiana notes that it was a warm day and that James Rosenquist came over to his loft, seeing Eat (of the diptych Eat/Die) and liking it, and that he then went over to Rosenquist's to see some of his new work. Regarding Rosenquist he writes, "Castelli says [that] he is loved. Ivan [Karp, co-director of the Leo Castelli Gallery] is giving him [the] red carpet treatment at [the] gallery."
Indiana also records receiving two phone calls: one from Arthur Carr (a collector and clinical psychologist), who reported that he had invited the sculptor Mon Levinson, and another from Campbell Wylly (a curator at the Museum of Modern Art), who reported that he was thinking of a sculpture show for his next Penthouse exhibition and might include one of Indiana's constructions (his herm Law was chosen for the show).
The artist then writes that he stretched the first square canvas for his first diamond (The Green Diamond Eat panel of the diptych The Green Diamond Eat/The Red Diamond Die), "rather buoyed by Jim’s reaction [to] “Eat”: a very favorable one, and contagious in his enthusiasm." He goes on to say "Jim unfortunately leans to [the] domineering, however, and would have Lichtenstein using his soft and modeled colors." He also records receiving a phone call from art critic Gene Swenson, who told him that his article on "sign painters" would be published (the article, "The New American ‘Sign Painters,'" was published in the September 1962 issue of ARTnews), and that he wanted to come down and talk it over further with Indiana.
Indiana records that after dinner he went uptown to see a one-night revival of Samuel Beckett's play Happy Days. He notes a "very good performance by Miss White, but not as moving an evening as I anticipated," and that dancer Paul Sanasardo was in the audience.
