American Dream

Robert Indiana, one of the preeminent figures in American art since the 1960s, has played a central role in the development of assemblage art, hard-edge painting and Pop art. A self proclaimed “American painter of signs,” Indiana has created a highly original body of work that explores American identity, personal history and the power of abstraction and language, establishing an important legacy that resonates in the work of many contemporary artists who make the written word a central element of their oeuvre.

Indiana quickly gained repute as one of the most creative artists of his generation, and was featured in influential New York shows such as New Forms – New Media at the Martha Jackson Gallery (1960), Art of Assemblage at the Museum of Modern Art (1961), and The New Realists at the Sidney Janis Gallery (1962). In 1961, the Museum of Modern Art acquired The American Dream (1961), the first in a series of paintings exploring the illusory American Dream, establishing Indiana as one of the most significant members of the new generation of Pop artists who were eclipsing the prominent painters of the New York School.

Indiana He also used found objects to create sculptures such as Ash (1985) and Mars(1990), works that reflected his new surroundings while also making reference to his past, and returned to and expanded upon his seminal American Dream series, completing The Ninth American Dream in 2001.