Robert Indiana was born in New Castle, Indiana. He moved to New York City in 1954 and joined the pop art movement, using distinctive imagery drawing on commercial art approaches blended with existentialism, that gradually moved toward what Indiana calls "sculptural poems".
Physically the sculpture, LOVE consists of the large letter LO, with the O canted sideways, over the letters VE. The letters are red on their faces and blue on their sides. Robert Indiana’s Love image takes sculptural form in numerous locations around the world, from New York's Sixth Avenue to Taipei 101; the icon represents the centerpiece of LOVE Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Originally a design for a stamp, the image has been reproduced and parodied in posters, pictures, jewelry, greeting cards.
One of the first Love sculptures, created in 1970 of cor-ten steel, stands in the sculpture garden at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.
Sculpture versions of the image have been installed at these American locations:
- Sixth Avenue in New York City
- E W Fairchild-Martindale Library, Lehigh University Asa Packer Campus
- Pratt Institute campus in Brooklyn, New York
- Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, Indiana
- Scottsdale's Civic Center
- "LOVE Park" in Philadelphia
- New Orleans Museum of Art's sculpture garden
- Middlebury College campus, Vermont [2],[3]
- University of Pennsylvania campus, Philadelphia
- Museum of Art at Brigham Young University, Utah
- Ursinus College campus in Collegeville, Pennsylvania
- Pool area of the Red Rock Resort Spa and Casino in Las Vegas
- Wichita State University campus in Wichita, Kansas
- City Park in New Orleans, Louisiana
Outside the United States sculptural versions of Indiana's image have been installed at these locations:
- Taipei 101 in Taipei, Taiwan (also displays Indiana's 1-0)[4]
- Shinjuku I-LAND Tower in Nishi-Shinjuku office district in Tokyo, Japan
- Orchard Road in Singapore
- Plaza del Sagrado Corazón in Bilbao, Basque Country Spain
- Outside 1445 West Georgia Street in Vancouver, Canada
- Praca do Rossio in Lisbon, Portugal
- CentralWorld in Bangkok, Thailand
- Zendai Museum of Modern Art in Shanghai,China
- Chatsworth in Derbyshire, UK, as part of the Sotheby's Beyond Limits exhibition, 2008.
Other languages:
- An Indiana sculpture showing the Hebrew word for love (ahava) is displayed at The Israel Museum in Jerusalem, Israel.
- An Indiana sculpture showing the Italian word for love (amor) is displayed outside the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II on Piazza della Scala in Milan, Italy.
Happy Valentine's Day!
