Robert Indiana and the Star of Hope

The exhibition has been extended through January 10, 2010

The Farnsworth is organizing a major exhibition on renowned American artist Robert Indiana drawn almost exclusively from his extensive holdings at his home and studio, the Star of Hope Oddfellows Lodge on the island of Vinalhaven, Maine. The show explores the vast range of Indiana’s work from the 1950s to the present, focusing on what he has done since 1978, when he moved permanently to the Star of Hope Lodge, a late nineteenth-century building listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

In particular, it examines the remarkable environment Indiana has created there and the role this environment has played in his work. It will include some of his best known themes – LOVE, the American dream, and his Marsden Hartley Elegy series – as well as more recent work such as the HOPE sculpture premiered at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. It features works Indiana considers critical to his development, many shown for the first time. The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with essays by prominent curator and historian of American art, John Wilmerding, on Indiana’s work dating from his move to Vinalhaven to the present, and by Farnsworth Chief Curator Michael K. Komanecky on the Star of Hope Lodge; and a film on the artist by documentary filmmaker Dale Schierholt.

Robert Indiana and the Star of Hope
Kurator: Michael K. Komaneck