LEWISTON – The public library owes a debt of gratitude to artist Robert Indiana’s oddly shaped walls.
Indiana, a Vinalhaven-based artist, has donated a massive diamond-shaped print from his “Hartley Elegies” series to the library for permanent display. The piece, No. 10 in the series of 18 bold designs, is on display in the first-floor entrance of the library.
“It was a framed print from my own collection, so it was a bit of a major sacrifice,” Indiana said. The oddly shaped walls in his home kept him from displaying the print, he said.
“I thought it would be better served on display in the library,” he said.
The piece is a reference to a famous series of paintings by Lewiston-born artist Marsden Hartley, the namesake for Lewiston’s new cultural arts center at the library and an inspiration for Indiana.
“Some of the earlier pieces in the series were more directly transcribed from Hartley,” Indiana said. “But as I worked on the series, my intention was to make them more Indiana and less Hartley. That’s where this is.”
It’s a perfect fit, said Library Director Rick Speer.
“It’s an important piece, and not just for us,” Speer said. “Robert Indiana is an important artist on his own, and this piece references Hartley’s work from a very profound time in his life. So it is great for us to have this opportunity.”
Pop art
Many consider Indiana to be a founder of the pop art movement of the 1960s. One of his most famous pieces is the “LOVE” logo from 1964. The logo was everywhere in the 1960s and ’70s, appearing on clothing, rugs, towels and a 1973 U.S. postage stamp. A 15-foot-tall sculpture of the logo once graced New York City’s Seventh Avenue.
Indiana’s homage to Hartley is a lesser-known series, but has been critically acclaimed. The 18 pieces in the elegies echo Hartley’s work, calling out themes from his War Motif paintings and noting the events of his life.
Hartley was born in Lewiston in 1877 and lived in New York and Berlin. He died in Ellsworth in 1943.
Indiana’s tie to Hartley comes from Vinalhaven, off the Maine coast. Hartley lived there for a summer in 1938 and left his mark on the island. Indiana visited the island in 1969, making it his permanent home 10 years later.
“It’s interesting to me that he regularly walked past my house that summer, on his way to the grocery,” Indiana said.
He wasn’t impressed by most of Hartley’s work, but he feels a close affinity to the War Motif paintings. Hartley made those after the death of beloved friend and associate Karl Von Freyburg at the opening of World War I.
“One of his pieces – my favorite, actually – is displayed rather conspicuously in the Metropolitan Museum of Art,” Indiana said. “One of my first elegies is based on that very piece. Most are based on one of those pieces.”
Bates show
Indiana donated 10 prints of the collection to Bates College in 1990. Liz Kelton Sheehan, assistant curator of the Bates Museum of Art, said those prints are featured in a show at the Olin Arts Center through Dec. 17.
The prints on display at Bates include Nos. 1 through 10 of the 18-piece Hartley Elegies.
“The timing of our show is completely coincidental, but it’s great,” Sheehan said. Bates has been planing the Indiana show for more than a year.
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