罗伯特·印地安纳（Robert Indiana）将基本的美国图标转化为他那个时代最细腻而引人思考的色彩共鸣。他运用语言和数字的形象，不断地回荡人类情感的范式，并使“爱”成为超越的国际标志。他是我们画家中最善于仿效爱默生（Emerson）的人，也是我们人类宣言的完美签署者。
罗伯特·印地安纳是自20世纪60年代以来美国艺术的重要人物之一，在装配艺术、硬边绘画和波普艺术的发展中起到了中心作用。作为自称“标志画家”的他创作了一系列高度原创的作品，探索了美国身份、个人历史以及抽象和语言的力量，确立了一种重要的遗产，并在许多将书面文字作为作品核心要素的当代艺术家的作品中产生共鸣。
罗伯特·印地安纳于1928年9月13日出生在印第安纳州纽卡斯尔，本名罗伯特·克拉克（Robert Clark）。他在婴儿时被领养，并在童年时经常在他同名的州内搬家。他早年展现出了艺术天赋，一位一年级的老师对他的承认激励了他成为艺术家的决定。1942年，印地安纳搬到印第安纳波利斯，就读于以其优质艺术课程而闻名的阿森纳尔技术高中。毕业后，他在美国空军服役三年，然后在芝加哥艺术学院、缅因州斯科威根雕塑和绘画学校以及苏格兰的爱丁堡艺术学院学习。
1956 年，印地安纳搬到纽约两年后，认识了 艾尔斯沃思·凯利（Ellsworth Kelly），并根据他的推荐来到康蒂斯码头（Coenties Slip），这曾经是曼哈顿东南角的一个重要港口。在那里，他加入了一个包括凯利、阿格尼斯·马丁（Agnes Martin）、詹姆斯·罗森奎斯特（James Rosenquist）和杰克·杨格曼（Jack Youngerman）在内的艺术家社区。码头的环境对印地安纳的创作产生了深远的影响，他早期的绘画作品包括一系列受附近珍妮特公园中的银杏树启发的硬边双银杏树叶。他还将银杏形态融入了他的19英尺壁画《受难》（Stavrosis，1958），这幅由他在阁楼里找到的四十四张纸拼接而成的耶稣受难图。正是在完成这幅作品后，印地安纳将他的家乡印第安纳州命名为自己的名字。
印地安纳和他的一些艺术家同行一样，从该地区的废弃仓库中搜集材料，利用旧木梁、生锈的金属轮和其他来自繁荣的康蒂斯码头航运贸易的残留物创建了雕塑装置。尽管他创作了悬挂作品，比如《贞德》（Jeanne d’Arc，1960-1962）和《中国长城》（Wall of China，1960-1961），但大多数是独立的建筑结构，印地安纳称之为“希尔墩”（herms），这是古希腊和罗马交叉路口上用作界标的雕塑物的名称。19世纪黄铜模板的发现使得这些雕塑以及画布上融入了鲜艳的色彩和情感充沛的短语，成为他新的绘画词汇的基础。
Robert Indiana has made of basic American iconography the most subtle and evocative resonance of color his time has seen. He has used the figure of language and number to echo endlessly the paradigms of human emotions and made LOVE an international sign of transcendent power. He is the most deftly Emersonian of our painters, the consummate signer of our human declaration.
One of the preeminent figures in American art since the 1960s, Robert Indiana played a central role in the development of assemblage art, hard-edge painting, and Pop art. Indiana, a self proclaimed “American painter of signs,” 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.
Robert Indiana was born Robert Clark in New Castle, Indiana on September 13, 1928. Adopted as an infant, he spent his childhood moving frequently throughout his namesake state. His artistic talent was evident at an early age, and its recognition by a first grade teacher encouraged his decision to become an artist. In 1942, Indiana moved to Indianapolis in order to attend Arsenal Technical High School, known for its strong arts curriculum. After graduating he spent three years in the U.S. Air Force and then studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Skowhegan School of Sculpture and Painting in Maine, and the Edinburgh College of Art in Scotland.
In 1956, two years after moving to New York, Indiana met Ellsworth Kelly, and upon his recommendation took up residence in Coenties Slip, once a major port on the southeast tip of Manhattan. There he joined a community of artists that would come to include Kelly, Agnes Martin, James Rosenquist, and Jack Youngerman. The environment of the Slip had a profound impact on Indiana’s work, and his early paintings include a series of hard-edge double ginkgo leaves inspired by the trees which grew in nearby Jeannette Park. He also incorporated the ginkgo form into his 19-foot mural Stavrosis (1958), a crucifixion pieced together from forty-four sheets of paper that he found in his loft. It was upon completion of this work that Indiana adopted the name of his native state as his own.
Indiana, like some of his fellow artists, scavenged the area’s abandoned warehouses for materials, creating sculptural assemblages from old wooden beams, rusted metal wheels, and other remnants of the shipping trade that had thrived in Coenties Slip. While he created hanging works such as Jeanne d’Arc (1960–62) and Wall of China (1960–61), the majority were freestanding constructions which Indiana called “herms” after the sculptures that served as boundary markers at crossroads in ancient Greece and Rome. The discovery of 19th century brass stencils led to the incorporation of brightly colored numbers and short emotionally charged words into these sculptures as well as canvases, and became the basis of his new painterly vocabulary.