Description:
Suite of five, edition 27/100
Label Text:
Robert Indiana derived this suite of five silkscreen prints from a group of paintings he produced in homage to the 20th-century American artist Charles Demuth. Indiana based the format of his series on Demuth’s well-known painting The Figure 5 in Gold, which was inspired by a William Carlos Williams poem celebrating the speed and clamor of a fire engine. Each part is distinguished by different words—“Err,” “Die,” “Eat,” and “Hug”—which appear simultaneously moralizing and nonsensical. Arranged as a cruciform, the prints suggest that these four concepts are essential elements defining the American Dream. Associated with the Pop Art movement, Indiana felt a special kinship with the long-deceased Demuth, not only because the earlier modernist’s graphic style was similarly based on popular imagery (such as billboards and advertising), but also because of their shared homosexuality.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=AC+1985.69.a-e |
