Painter Joseph T. Swanson and the Art Venues in Richmond, Indiana

Fiberglass Plant Smokestacks III, Joseph T. Swanson

Art All Over Richmond.

When visiting exhibits at the Richmond Museum of Art (RAM), an art lover can easily make a day of it, by exploring additional fine art and contemporary art exhibition galleries in the city. The RAM is just south of US 40 near downtown on the west side of the East Fork Whitewater River.  

Venues on the northside near the I-70 interchange include the MacDowell Gallery at Reid Health and the Tom Thomas Gallery in Whitewater Hall at I.U. East. The campuses of both Reid Health and I.U. East are adjacent.  

The RAM currently hosts a major solo exhibition by Mason Archie of Indianapolis, as well as works by  artist and educator, Elmira Kempton, a native of Richmond who studied at the Cincinnati Art Academy and was later head of the Art Department at Earlham College. There is also a special small exhibition of  preparatory works by famed book illustrator, Garth Williams, who did the drawings for the beloved children's book Charlotte's Web.

The Thomas Gallery has a solo show, The Unpaved Road, by India Cruse Griffin, a Richmond artist, which will be covered in detail elsewhere in this blog. She currently has this solo show at I. U. East, as well as works at Reid Health and RAM, and is showing a body of work at Harrison Center in Indianapolis.

Reid Health's MacDowell Gallery currently has the exhibit Oil and Water by Joseph “Joe” T. Swanson. The gallery hangs along two long exhibition walls on the second floor above the main entrance. The space runs along a major hallway at the front of the facility, and is bathed in natural light from the front facing windows.   

 

Joseph T. Swanson's Oil and Water at MacDowell Gallery.

The title of the Swanson's show could have multiple connotations. The phrase refers to elements that don't necessarily blend well together or agree. Also, though, both substances are fluid and flowing, so the title could refer to that attribute of semisolid gracefulness that liquids possess. Both indeed are associated with art mediums, as in oil and watercolor paint. Finally, oil has an environmentally negative  connotation perhaps, whereas water invokes more uplifting and positive thoughts.

The oil of Richmond's light industrial and the water of its downtown river seem to serve as the painting grounds for the artist as he seeks inspiration from the reality of his local environment with its ancient natural beauty and the relative toxicity of industrialization.

Tie Plates on the Former GR&I, Joseph T. Swanson

Swanson presents works from two, if not more, separate threads of creative impulse, maybe.  Upon first look you might think two or more, if not multiple artists, are involved. The largest, surest group of pieces are the abstract and gestural works that many times note either a landscape origin, or object of landscape reference. The show statement that accompanies the exhibit describes a 'found object' discovery process in the artist's gestural painting.  It's not clear from the description whether Swanson starts with a landscape, or ends up there. His found object could be the painting itself, when the back and forth is finished.

The artist has a background in graffiti-inspired murals and the use of spray paint as a medium. This experience seems to inform his mark making and his color choices. Many of his paintings show the fluid and curving marks, and somewhat simple or reduced color palette, seen in monikers and tags on rolling freight-cars on railways. His paintings are devoid of any such obvious reference, though. Swanson has dissolved any link to such logos by splintering his marks and painting his strokes in a more haphazard and abstract manner. 

Prehistoric Cataract 6, Joseph T. Swanson

In Prehistoric Cataract 8, (and 6) the colors are limited to a handful of bold earth tones; blues, greens and browns. The physics and form of a cataract or waterfall is not easily seen in the work –  it is an overall abstract image.  But the tumult and chaos of the water can be imagined in looking at the churn of the brush strokes radiating about the canvas. Clear Creek Mid-Century is a mixture of architectural marks and the more organic forms, again in earthy colors – this time blue and brown. 

Similarly, in the series if three spray paint on canvas works, Fiberglass Plant Smokestacks (I,II, and III), (image at top of page) Swanson creates the landscapes abstractions with a series of limited colors per picture, about five colors each. If the industrial fiberglass plant is the subject, it appears as only a vestige of a sketchy echo, amid the overall graffiti inspired spray paint markings. The paintings seem abstracted studies of landscape motifs mixed with, and perhaps overpowered by, the brawn and muscle memory of a street artist's quick hand. 

Venetian Red Neapolitan Green, Joseph T. Swanson

That the restricted color wheel plays its roll in Swanson's art is further emphasized by his title on a few more pieces. Works named after, or with names including, colors contained in the paintings occurs in Venetian Red Neapolitan Green and Krylon Safety Plum Gamblin Manganese Violet. The latter title refers to two different paints; a fast drying, high-visibility spray paint used to mark hazard and caution areas and an artist color that contains manganese, which may or may not be toxic to humans.

Grasping at the meaning of Swanson's work by studying their titles and images is a bit slippery and elusive, a bit like grabbing at either oil or water and just touching on wet.

Joseph Swanson, educated at Herron School of Art, is from Richmond and has worked as an artist, an art educator and currently as Assistant Curator at RAM.

His exhibition at Reid Health continues through April.

Mark Diekhoff, February 2026

The material used in this article is being used under the fair use provisions of copyright law. The content is being used for educational purposes only, and all rights to the original content are held by their respective copyright owners. We do not claim ownership of any copyrighted material used in this work.

Connection to Freedom: Works by Mason Archie at Richmond Art Museum

Mason Archie artworks at Richmond Art Museum
including far left, Freedom Stairs and left center Sunset on the Coffin Home

The Richmond Art Museum (RAM) presents Connection to Freedom: Works by Mason Archie, the first solo museum exhibition by the artist. Numerous paintings from two distinct bodies of recent work  are included in the exhibit. 

First, a grand collection of large-format, narrative landscapes from his Underground Railroad Series, and in addition, his equally impressive collection of canvases from his Landscapes in the City of Indianapolis.   

The RAM is a perfect venue for the exhibition of the artist who began his career in his birthplace, Dayton, Ohio, and now makes the Indianapolis area his home. Perfect in that Interstate 70 connects the two cities, with Richmond being about the halfway point. Perfect, also, in that RAM has a long and storied history in presenting the accomplished work of notable landscape painters in its region and beyond, including T. C. Steele, a painter of particular significance and influence for Archie. And perfect in that the two beautiful, adjacent rooms showing Archie's work provide feelings of both intimacy and spaciousness, attributes also possessed by the artist's paintings. 

A Road to Richmond.

Mason Archie, who began his career in the realm of commercial art in Dayton, Ohio, which included a billboard painting business, participated, as a fine artist in various art exhibits that garnered local attention in that city beginning about the early 2000s. 

In an exhibit, Who Are We? We Are: Indianapolis and Dayton Artists Speak, a group show that opened first at the Indianapolis Art Center in April 2001, and then in Dayton the following February 2002 at the Dayton Visual Arts Center  and the LRC Gallery – Sinclair Community College. 

A few years later, in March 2006, Archie participated in an auction and exhibition of work held by the African American Visual Artists Guild, a Dayton organization. 

By July of the same year, Archie was exhibiting with the Collective Art Gallery in a group exhibition, Conversations in Blackness, in the Fountain Square arts district of Indianapolis.

And the following August, Archie, by then living in Speedway, Indiana, would enter the 82nd Hoosier Salon, held in Indianapolis. He would win the Best Traditional Landscape Award for his oil painting Descent in the Fog. 

In January 2012, the Indiana State Museum in Indianapolis would present the exhibit Represent that included Mason Archie and 23 other artists, as the January 15, 2012, Indianapolis Star describes,

“(The) exhibition...focuses on African-American artists in Indiana and how they have influenced the Hoosier state.

The exhibit...includes 40 pieces, ranging from painting and sculpture to photography and textiles. 

The museum included several historical pieces that were already in its permanent collection, but... (focused)...on contemporary works.” 

When the new Sydney & Lois Eskenazi Hospital opened in December 2013 in Indianapolis, it included  new works by 18 visual artists installed throughout the facility. Mason Archie was chosen for the project, and thus joined a shared heritage of artists decorating the hospital over the years. 

The facility, called City Hospital in an earlier iteration about 100 years prior, began its long history of healing and art when a large group of Indiana artists decorated its newly remodeled women's and children's wards. Artists in those earlier times included T. C Steele, William Forsyth, William Edouard Scott and Dorothy Morlan. 

And in 2025, Mason Archie had work represented in the Indiana State Museum show John Wesley Hardrick: Through the Eyes of an Artist, and also in a Detroit, Michigan, group show held at the Carr Center called Everyday People, Part 2.

A Creek, a River, a Reservoir and Some Trees (Not to Mention Skies).

The Indianapolis paintings of Mason Archie are all large, salon-sized pieces executed in a realistic manner, that seem slightly idealized in overall effect. The oil on linen works portray a style and subject matter that is reminiscent of Romanticism at times. Several pictures are evocative and moody in a uplifting or dreamy way, depicting a heightened realism in the distilled perfection of the vision portrayed.  

Under the Learning Tree by Mason Archie

Judging by their recurring appearance, Archie has a fondness for sycamore trees, which are a major focus in several pictures. In Under the Learning Tree, a smartly-dressed man reads a newspaper while sitting atop a picnic table in a park setting under the dappled shade of a large sycamore tree. The painting is more realist than impressionist, but Archie has captured some fleeting light effects wonderfully. The cool shade surrounds the man in the foreground, while sunshine blazes on trees and the pond in the distant background.

The irregular and interestingly shaped canopies at the crest of tall trees dominate some paintings, while the unique brown to white fractured transition of the tree bark, signature to sycamores, provides a primary center of focus in others. 

Some include figures, such as a second picture with a man reading a paper in the park, as portrayed in Best of Simple, and one of a woman walking on a gray, rainy day. In that painting, Sycamore at Senate and Fall Creek, an autumn drizzle is warmed by the orange leaves and grass that contrast with the teal umbrella the woman holds. 

Trees provide a more supporting role in other paintings in which water dominates.  Eagle Creek Reservoir is a picture composed and divided into four roughly rectangular quadrants of sky, water, land and trees. It possesses a unique balance. And the additional visual elements of curving dirt tracks leading the eyes deeper into the space, and also the placement of a couple of boats on the water which seem to end in deep distance at a dam, keep the viewer looking around the painting. 

The large diptych, Morning on White River, portrays a wide panorama of peaceful morning solitude along the shore of the river. The scene is covered in the long shadows of early light. One can almost hear the trickle of water through the outcropping of large river rocks near the shore.

A mood of stronger feeling is experienced in some other paintings. The word sublime comes to mind in the winter view in Eagle Creek Park, with its expanse of dim sky and dormant, brown vegetation stretching from one side to the other amid a wetland freezing over with ice.  And the roiling menace of not-so-fair-weather skies agitate and awe in the two pictures Morning on the White River, After the Storm and Fall Creek at M.L.K. Jr. Street Bridge. 

 

The Story of a Freedom Road.

For Mason Archie, his personal connection to freedom may well be his immersion in moments of a  wondrous nature of trees, skies and waterways. His often solitary figures, amid the beauty of the surrounding, could be metaphor for the artist himself, traveling through the real world of strife and sadness, yet focusing on the ever-presence and permanence of goodness, joy and spacious exhilaration that is always there to discovered. 

In the Underground Railroad Series of paintings in the adjoining room,  an epic visual narrative is displayed. The works, and their accompanying notes, tell a story of brave fugitives all across the Eastern United States, at a time when freedom was just a dream for many. 

The paintings are like chapters of many heroes' journeys, a collection of their individual stories, that when taken together hint at the enormity of suffering and fear in those times. Archie's accomplishment is a historic bravery portrayed and an all-to-rare compassion painted. The exhibit should really be experienced in person,and in full, to grasp the overall story and effect of the body of work.

Pathway on Roosevelt Island, #2 by Mason Archie

In the painting Pathway on Roosevelt Island, #2,  we have a figure on a bicycle, stopped at a fork in the path. One foot resting on the ground, as if thinking, while in the shade for the moment, which path to take going forward. Both directions appear sunlit and beautiful, both lined by sycamore trees. The dappled light does not really lead he way. The bicyclist must make the choice.

In Sunset on the Coffin Home, a picture purchased for the RAM collection, the bicyclist again appears. The mode of transport alone is indicative of the childhood feeling of freedom, and motion, air on the face and the world rushing by. 

It is a sunset painted on the walls of the home of a Quaker couple in Fountain County, Indiana. Levi and Catherine Coffin, who made a choice, to be, not just anti-slavery, but active hosts for numerous fugitive slaves who took refuge in their home. 

And in Archie's Freedom Stairs , a mythological freedom becomes real, as the stairway to heaven portrayed is actually to Ripley, Ohio, an important stop on the Underground Railroad. 

In the waters of the Ohio River, flowing between slave lands and free, there must have been the limbo of  disorientation – how can one be not enslaved anymore, but not yet free? A golden confusion, until stumbling onto the northern shore – a path out of the deep forest, and up the ravine, across the steps into light.

partial view, Landscapes in the City of Indianapolis room
of the Mason Archie exhibit at Richmond Art Museum

The exhibit Connection to Freedom: Works by Mason Archie continues at Richmond Art Museum until March 28.

Mark Diekhoff, February 22, 2026

The material used in this article is being used under the fair use provisions of copyright law. The content is being used for educational purposes only, and all rights to the original content are held by their respective copyright owners. We do not claim ownership of any copyrighted material used in this work.

BOLD: New Voices in Contemporary Art at Newfields

Re-Remembering V (Something Torn and New), by Wangari Mathenge

In an exhibit continuing through June 28, 2026, the  Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA) at Newfields presents thirteen works in the collection of the IMA. As described by the museum, the works "highlight (its) ever expanding and globally relevant contemporary art collection." 

Several are recent acquisitions of works by "cutting-edge contemporary" African artists. Those works, along with some works already in the museum's collection, make up nine of the thirteen that are shown for the first time in an exhibit by the IMA.

All the works represent  the IMA's "evolving contemporary collection and its commitment toward a global, inclusive, relevant future."

The show, BOLD: New Voices in Contemporary Art, includes a single work each of the included artists. The new acquisitions include works by African artists such as Wole Lagunju, Turiya Magadlela and Kimathi Mafafo.  Museum favorite artworks previously on display in the collection are also included, such as those by Vaughn Spann, Carlos Rolón and Samuel Levi Jones. 

The word bold describes not only the artworks, their ambitious scale in many cases, and the underlying artistic statement in others, but also the exhibition space itself and the innovative selection of works and color of the walls. 

Re-Remembering V (Something Torn and New), (top of page) a large oil on canvas by Kenyan artist Wangari Mathenge, presents an amazing and realistic portrait of a woman, perhaps standing, perhaps lying down. Her right arm raised and bent with the point of the elbow highest. The pose subtly hints at classic female portraits with hand behind head. 

The picture is an avalanche of color, pattern, object and shape, with a few carefully placed words, most noticeably, 'Hope'. 

Textiles and clothing, in a haphazard jumble, vie for the viewers attention with plaids, checks, stripes and organic and floral patterns. Books, toys, consumer items, produce such as an eggplant and lemons, and photos are scattered about completing a busy mishmash of elements that delight the eye. 

The title refers to a book, carefully painted near the woman's left hip amid the mountain of other objects; a bright orange rectangle of color near a round orange of the same hue and bottle of Coke. 

The detailed care of the painting's items makes the book's title clear, and thus the importance of its inclusion. 

Something Torn and New by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, subtitled An African Renaissance.  According to the accompanying exhibit notes, in the book the author “presents his concept of 'Europhonism,' or the replacement of native African names, languages and identities with European ones.”

With that in mind, looking at and experiencing Mathenge's remarkable picture, one can see the painter's woman as perhaps overwhelmed with the collision of Western and African traditions and socioeconomic systems both trying to survive, even triumph, at the same time in the same place. She does not look happy, or particularly sad. Perhaps reticent or wary, but like the word on the yellow banner near her upraised arm, possessing hope.

The Adoration of Benjamin, 2023, by Wole Langunju, a Nigerian artist, shows a current British celebrity and musician in a monumental portrait. The work, also an oil on canvas, is boldly pattered and colorful, not unlike Mathenge's Re-Remembering. 

According to the gallery notes, the artist is using the patterns and colors of a specific African tradition as a basis for his design. The wrapping of the subject, Benjamin, and his background space, in the colors and the patterns of Africa, as opposed to the posh, Western clothing or environs he is usually seen in, seems a repatriation in a way, by Langunju, of Benjamin. If not the man himself, his stylish beauty, his success, perhaps his charismatic power –  attributes of the painting, as well as the sitter.  

The Adoration of Benjamin by Wole Langunju

Or the painting could be something more akin to fan-fiction, in this case fan-art. Wherein the artist incorporates their favorites into the style of their overall work, such as Andy Warhol did with his many celebrity portraits, in the overall vein of his signature look.

Sisters in Unison I, 2024, by South African artist Kimathi Mafate, is a large hand- and machine-stitched embroidery on fabric piece in shades of rose, flesh, black and white. 

The piece is lush and extravagant in a decorative manner reminiscent of Gustav Klimt, yet here, so pretty in pink, all the artist's own. 

Two reclined women, intimately close, are stretched out in parallel poses, and look out with sideways glances at the viewer.

 

Sisters in Unison I by Kimathi Mafate

There is a splendor and perfume to the opulent scene. The power of the gaze of the women is balanced by the soft billowing curves of the fabric which surrounds them, the overall soft and feminine color scheme, and the many flower blossoms that almost appear summoned by the gesture of their hands.

In addition to many additional large and engaging two-dimensional pieces, a large sculptural vessel in painted fiberglass, Ndebele Abstract, 2023, by Esther Mahlangu. The Ndebele tradition is described by the exhibition notes as “an art form celebrated for its bold geometric patterns, vibrant colors, and intricate symmetry .”  All those attributes are contained in Mahlangu's vessel, creating a stunning overall effect. 

Ndebele Abstract by Esther Mahlangu

In a way, bold, vibrant, colorful and patterned are components seen in some part in most every work in the show.  From the dazzling, fluid video work, Rabbit Hole, 2011, by Jacco Olivier to the massive show-stopper Rover, 2021, by Vaughn Spann, whose assemblage, which due to the gargantuan size, is experienced as more an installation that a multi-media painting. As show-stoppers usually are,  it is big and bold.   

Mark Diekhoff, February 2026

The material used in this article is being used under the fair use provisions of copyright law. The content is being used for educational purposes only, and all rights to the original content are held by their respective copyright owners. We do not claim ownership of any copyrighted material used in this work.

50 Years of Robert Indiana's LOVE at Indianapolis Museum of Art

Mike, Mark and Eddie w/ LOVE by Robert Indiana at IMA, 1971

Art at First Sight?

Love can be lasting or fleeting, casual or serious. It can be selfless or controlling, narcissistic or empathetic. The affection of Indianapolis, or at least the Indianapolis Museum of Art, for the work of Robert Indiana could be described as obsessive and possessive, at least when it comes to a certain 9000 pound masterpiece of a sculpture by the artist.  

The year 2025 marked the official 50-year anniversary of the permanent acquisition of LOVE, a massive outdoor public art piece of oxidized steel, measuring 12 feet high and wide.  It was purchased by friends of the museum for the museum for a reported $75,000 in 1975. 

If 1975 was indeed the marriage year, then the IMA and LOVE had been shacked-up during a long engagement. LOVE first came to town in 1970 for the opening exhibit of the Indianapolis Museum of Art and its new Krannert Pavilion on 38th Street.

It was a match made in heaven, desire at first sight. A love born, perhaps, more of mirroring than opposites attracting, given the artist's adopted name. For a Hoosier to love Indiana is not so much of a stretch. 

Whatever the source, Robert Indiana's LOVE would infatuate not only our city and state, but the entire country, and the world beyond. As demonstrated with the Beatles' All You Need Is... song from 1967 and the Summer of, yes, Love, the world seemed eager for a mass hysteria hit off a certain four letter word.  And although the day-glo of psychedelia was dimming just those few summers later, the geo-political globe was still afire with assassination, riot, war and poverty. The Beatles, the bed-ins and the Sunshine Supermen had not yet dug us out of that hole.

Folks hadn't given up, though, and still seemed eager in the '70s, that self-help decade, to aspire to the strongest of positive emotions that love obviously is.  

Despite the pits we lived in, we yearned and hoped and dreamed of it still. The most hopeful and universal and eternal human emotion that there is when all is said and done.

As William Burroughs wrote in his journal just a day before he died in 1997,

“Love? What is it? Most natural painkiller what there is. LOVE.”

Burroughs capitalized all the letters of the word in his journal, like Robert Indiana did in his sculpture almost thirty years earlier. Thus emphasized, the word was made a symbol or a sign, art or not, an eventual epitaph with its lopsided 'O' to be scorned or adored. 

The 1970s would bring stagflation and downsizing, lay-offs and unemployment lines. Many were left yearning for better times while stuck in long gas lines in hulking gas guzzlers already extinct.

Robert Indiana had caught a bottle of lightning and was ready to ride that zeitgeist, with just a vibe and his signs, to his own promised word.  A word most potent, with a power that never grows tired plodding through the tin pan alleys of Madison Avenue, and out onto an endless and thundering road. Robert Indiana was on the human highway that everybody wants. Paved with money and a thing called LOVE.

Love in Two and Three Dimensions.

Robert Indiana created a two-dimensional prototype of sorts, for the later, greater sculpture of the same name with his LOVE painting created in 1966. By 1967, the Herron Museum of Art had acquired the painting for their permanent collection. The Herron Museum evolved into the Indianapolis Museum of Art in the following years, and the painting is now at IMA/Newfields. 

It is a large 6 foot square work with that word in red letters and green to the lower left fill, blue in the upper and right fill. The enclosed hollow of the tilted 'O' is filled with green. 

In a Sunday Star Magazine article by Gretchen Wolfram in the September 8, 1968, Indianapolis Star, Robert Indiana called his style of painting 'hard-edged' as opposed to pop. 

One can judge for oneself. The painting is on current display in the contemporary galleries at Newfields. 

Looking at it now, with the passage of time, Indiana's imagery has obtained a ubiquitous familiarity as common as a Warhol soup can. The hard-edged distinction has lost its edge as a cliche in art world circles, and so pop the painting is today, at least for me. 

The sculpture, though, is another thing altogether.  

Lacking the comic book colors, made of Cor-ten steel, massive, imposing with a gorgeous brown patina, it transcends the various art movements in motion at the time of its creation. Not quite Neo-Dada with its simplistic clarity. Not quite minimal in the brashness of its snap and crackle. Yet not quite pop in the abstracted meaning of the sentimental romanticism of its most obvious message. 

LOVE has obtained a gravitas that far exceeds even the heyday of its overnight sensation. It still boxes above its own heavyweight class of fellow contenders like Donald Judd and Richard Serra. 

From the foot of its 'VE,' looking up-close and personal, it possesses an eternal solemnity that speaks volumes, not just one four-letter word. 

Pre Nup and Post Nup – 1970 through Today.

LOVE was first seen in Indianapolis in 1970. Indeed its first public exhibition anywhere occurred here at the inaugural exhibit for the Indianapolis Museum of Art, at its then brand-new Krannert Pavilion, on 38th Street. 

The museum was built on the grounds of the former Oldfields estate built by Hugh McKennan Landon circa 1913 atop former farm fields, and later sold to Josiah K. Lilly Jr. of Lilly Pharmaceutical and the Lilly Endowment, in 1932. 

The Robert Indiana sculpture was just one of seven outdoor public sculptures on display on the museum grounds for the occasion. The exhibition called Seven Outside ran from October 1970 through January 1971. Other artists included Alexander Calder, George Rickey and David Smith. But Indiana's was the breakout work. And, as it would turn out, the most enduring.

LOVE made a big splash. High school kids and museum staff, alike, climbed all over it as it sat on the lawn like a piece of playground equipment. Everybody seemed to want a piece of Indiana's LOVE. He was claimed, by both Tech High School and another one in Mooresville, as one of their own. 

Robert Indiana did admit to a nomadic youth moving across the state. Quoting the Star Magazine article mentioned above,

“(Robert Indiana) claims New Castle as his birthplace and he lived in at least 21 other Indiana towns, Mooresville among them, by the time he was 17...

...he stuck around Indianapolis long enough to be graduated second in the Class of '46 from Arsenal Technical High School, where his main interests centered around art, Latin and journalism.

...he was photography editor of the ...yearbook and considered a career in photography. Also, he won a scholarship to attend the Saturday classes at Herron.”

Indiana discussed the origins of LOVE in an October 21, 1970, Indianapolis News article and interview with Peggy Jackson. He discusses how his first artworks were found object assemblages, a style and technique practiced by a large number of artists in the the mid-to-late 1950s. He 'found' some 19th century stencils, which were a basis of the painting, and later sculpture, LOVE. 

About the Indianapolis Museum of Art adoption of his imagery as their quasi trademark or logo at the time, Indiana said, quietly to Jackson,

“Yes, I'm happy that the museum is using LOVE as their symbol... People care about love. I don't think many people care about art...”

So proud of the sculpture, was the IMA, that in May 1971, it was relocated from its Seven Outside location, to the center of a circular lawn at the entrance to the museum. The Indianapolis Star, on May 16, 1971, explained,

“Museum officials believe that the sculpture will provide a proper mood for delegates planning to attend sessions at the International Conference of Cities in the museum later this month. 

The sculpture, on indefinite loan from the...artist, will be moved back to its regular spot on the grounds after the conference.”

By the autumn, the sculpture would travel out East to spend time first installed at Boston's City Hall Plaza, and then in New York City in Central Park from November 1971 through January 1972. 

Fanfare ensued, and the New York Times reported that “No one had an unkind word to say for LOVE.” and that the sculptures placement in the city marked “a great day for New York.”

LOVE by Robert Indiana at Indiana National Bank plaza, 1972

Upon its return to Indianapolis in February, 1972, LOVE would be placed at the downtown Indiana National Bank plaza, and unveiled on Valentine's Day. It would return to IMA after about 6 weeks. A concurrent exhibit of Indiana's work occurred in the bank's lobby during the period.

In a detailed front page Indianapolis News column on February 14, 1972, writer Marion Simon Garmel spoke to Indiana about his LOVE just installed and unveiled at INB. About it's permanent location in Indianapolis, he said,

“I would love to see it in my home town, which is New York City now."

But also,  

"...I would like to see it on top of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument on a revolving pedestal. That would put Indiana back on the map.”

Garmel records that the remark was said “only half in jest.” 

She also records his comments about his ties to the state, affection for its traditions and its inspiration on his work,

“Born Robert Clark...in New Castle, he lived in 21 Indiana towns before he was 17, shuttling back and forth between divorced parents.”

And also,

“He collects James Whitcomb Riley memorabilia...and refers to Vinalhaven, the island off the coast of Maine where he maintains a summer studio, as 'My little Brown County.' ”

Garmel writes that Indiana's work is rooted in memories of growing up in Indiana, citing a specific example,

“The colors in his original LOVE painting...are drawn from his memory of standing on East 38th Street and watching a red-and-green Phillips 66 service-station sign flash against the blue sky.”

Garmel quotes the artist's description of his motivations in creating his work,

“I have a passion for documentation...I'm really documenting the times. I think that's what my signs are all about. I'm celebrating American places and American ideals and, who knows, next I might celebrate American people. But I don't know what form that will take.”

LOVE's reputation only continued to grow, and a momentum continued to build, in the following months and years. 

The December 13, 1972, Indianapolis News reports on a New York City show, Robert Indiana: Celebration of a Decade, that contained many new iterations of Indiana's LOVE theme. The show was reviewed by critic John Canaday in the New York Times, as quoted in a Marion Garmel Brush Strokes column in the Indianapolis News on December 13, 1972,

“It is simply not fair that these variations (of Indiana's LOVE) – hardly variations, more like repetitions – should make such a sparkling show...”

On January 26, 1973, the US Postal Service issued a first class stamp of Indiana's LOVE design just in time for Valentine's Day. 

Promoted as “a special stamp for someone special,” by the post office, it was an overwhelming success, with over 300 million 8-cent stamps issued. The success also inspired the the 'love' themed stamps issued annually by the post office almost every year since 1982.

The IMA and the state's infatuation affair with Robert Indiana would continue over the following decades. IMA mounted exhibitions that included Indiana such as Painting and Sculpture Today 1974, and the solo shows Robert Indiana, 1978 and Essential Robert Indiana, 2014, among many others.

 The IMA would acquire the monumental sculpture series NUMBERS (0 through 9), 1980-83, in 1988. 

Numbers (5) and Numbers (0) by Robert Indiana
installed at IMA entrance at Newfields to honor 
anniversary of Indiana's LOVE by the museum 

Indiana Obelisk was commissioned for the entrance of the new Indiana State Museum building by then Governor Frank O'Bannon in 2000, and was unveiled on April 9, 2008.

Time Passages of Love and Art.

LOVE has been restored in recent years after many years displayed out-of-doors. It rests inside out of the rain and the cold, but out of the sunshine too. People, kids and adults alike, aren't crawling all over it anymore. That dance is done. 

Maybe the museum should order a replica to be placed outside as was intended for the original. And allow that interaction on the grass beneath the sky. Like Florence, Italy did with its David. The precious one inside, like a hermit sealed in the protection of a retirement home. But outside, in Florence, David has two clones, like twins that are out and about with the crowds and the fountains and the birds.

LOVE, Robert Indiana, 1970 outside at IMA, postcard image

I started my research into LOVE, the sculpture, after I came upon a Kodachrome slide in my father's old things a few years ago (image top of page). My brother and me, and our same best friend. 

The Summer of 1971, at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Three boys, a sculpture and the Krannert Pavilion. 

All our backs were to LOVE in the snapshot. Indeed, I don't really remember seeing the sculpture at all at the time. Robert Indiana was way over my head. This was my first visit to an art museum.

Dad had taken us boys along as he wanted to see the Russells and the Remingtons on display. That was his recollection, anyway, when I asked him about that day he took us to the museum. 

All I really remember about the art museum from that day, is the stairways we climbed, and upon reaching a landing, a series of vibrant Op Art paintings that played hippie-colored tricks on my eyes. Orange and flashing, bending tricks.

But LOVE wasn't through with me yet, even if I blocked it from my memory or just didn't notice the first time. 

By a couple years later, at the Block's Department Store at Southern Plaza, I saw the shiny chrome of a simple four letter word, its gleam and dance of light bending across its curving edges. 

It was the size of a door-stop, and it cost 8 bucks. This was before I had a job or even my paper route, so that was a lot of money.

A 50-something-year-old Mother's Day present still sits in a place of honor aside engagement and wedding photos, baby pictures, and other treasured gifts. It's not beat up too bad at all. It still shines. 

Mark Diekhoff, Valentine's Day, 2026

See also - Robert Indiana Interview, 1978

The material used in this article is being used under the fair use provisions of copyright law. The content is being used for educational purposes only, and all rights to the original content are held by their respective copyright owners. We do not claim ownership of any copyrighted material used in this work.