"LOVE Purple/Red", conceived in 1966/cast in 2000

In 1958 Indiana wrote a series of poems and for the first time used the letters LO and VE piled on top of each other. From 1961 on, he created paintings with large scale letters relating to traffic signs and billboards. These paintings reflect his aim to capture the experience of the modern America, an ambition which is also evident in his decision to adopt the name of his home state. In 1966 he began a series of pictures with the word „Love“, already with the famous typography, about which he said : „To me the ‚LOVE‘ painting is a one word poem. The ‚O‘ is part of a typographic tradition – in manual typesetting, the ‚O‘ is tilted. This was not at all my invention. I just continued a tradition. The next step was transferring the theme to large scale sculptures. The first sculpture was cut from a solid aluminium block in 1966.