“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 work I’m doing now, my Auto Portraits, I regard as an extension of the Dream series – my own personal American Dream. In other words, they have become self-portraits. I think of myself first of all as American, then as an American painter painting an American theme. And this will continue.” – Robert Indiana
Excerpt from Indiana’s Indianas. Exhibition catalogue (Rockland: William A. Farnsworth Library and Art Museum, 1982)