LOVE

I’m talking about LOVE. Not Valentines Day love, mind. I’m talking about love for Robert Indiana’s powerfully striking prints, and love for the Indianapolis Museum of Art for showing the first print retrospective of Indiana’s works in over 40 years.

Most of us probably know Robert Indiana’s LOVE. Starting out as a print for MoMA’s Christmas card in 1964, by 1973 it was being used for a US 8c postage stamp, of which more than 300 million stamps were printed. If you never caught it in print, it’s more than likely you’ve happened upon his LOVE sculpture, either in Indianapolis—where the 1970 original lives at the Indianapolis Museum of Art—Manhattan, Philadelphia, one of it’s many other locations, or in someone’s vacations snaps.

So it seems somewhat fitting that the Museum should now be celebrating the artist with The Essential Robert Indiana, a touring exhibition featuring more than 50 of the artist’s boldly powerful graphic works. The show will also feature a small series of photographs of Robert Indiana taken by New York photojournalist William John Kennedy in the artist’s studio in 1963. If you love bold, this will be a great exhibition to get along to.

“Robert Indiana holding his Cat at his Coenties Slip studio” 1964 (printed 2010). Photograph by William John Kennedy.

The Essential Robert Indiana is on view from February 16–May 4th, 2014, at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.