LEWISTON — Robert Indiana’s exhibit at the Bates College’s Olin Art Center is breathtaking.

Seventy works featuring sharp-edged lines, bold colors and tight designs seen in his printed images, greet the visitor walking into the gallery. His work is immediately recognizable: The silkscreen of the piece titled “LOVE,”  created for the Museum of Modern Art in 1965,  is an icon of the Pop Art movement.

In the past, Indiana’s bold printed images of “LOVE,” “EAT,” “HOPE,” and his “ALPHABET” series swept through the nation and traveled internationally for many decades. Seeing them now at Bates in 2016, they remain fresh, vibrant and timeless both in meaning, and in tight, powerful design.   

Experiencing Indiana’s iconic “LOVE”  paintings, sculptures and prints at Bates is enhanced by the beautiful way Dan Mills, Bates museum director, hung the installation.

“I have been inspired by Indiana’s work all my life,” Mills said. “When the opportunity came up to get a traveling exhibit, I jumped at it.” The museum director said he is especially pleased the museum is the first to display Indiana’s 2016 series series of 12 silkscreens, titled  “Like a Rolling Stone,” based on lyrics of the Bob Dylan song 

Indiana’s art focuses on the visually evocative power of the word as art. Historically, the printed word — and the language it represents — is a form of art found in many cultures:  Hieroglyphics in Egypt, Hebrew calligraphy of the ancient Torahs and the magnificent Christian manuscripts created in the Middle Ages, all reflect a merging of art and word.

The artist has created a calligraphy of the our century: words that reflect our culture’s most basic needs expressed in his distinctive sharp-edged,  square, flat bold letters.

For the Bates installation, free-standing walls were created for this exhibit to make separate spaces for works to be shown. Two different sculptures of “HOPE” are on view, one made from carved wood as a study in 2007, and one made from cast aluminum in 2012. A small study for the work “Golden Hope” made from 12-karat gold over extruded aluminum in 2013 is unique in the exhibit.

Indiana’s “ALPHABET” silkscreen series is hung  on two walls in the center of the gallery and Nine “LOVE” silkscreens line two other walls of the Olin art Center.

Each work in the exhibit includes an Indiana poem, framed and hung below it.

The exhibit was curated by Indiana’s long-time friend Michael McKenzie. It started out as an organized traveling show, but it expanded to include many more works, and the production of a special “Like a Rolling Stone” poster printed by Penmore Graphics of Lewiston, featuring a reproduction of a piece from the series. 

Robert Indiana, born Robert Clark in 1928 in Newcastle, Indiana, is a graduate of the Art Institute of Chicago.  In 1953 he received a scholarship to Maine’s Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. 

He moved to Vinalhaven in 1970, and has been particularly enjoying the privacy of the Maine island ever since. 

Bringing such exciting works into the Bates College Museum in Lewiston gives the public in Maine access to works of art that can only be seen in New York or other large, cosmopolitan cities. It is a wonderful opportunity for the students, but also for the general public here in Maine to enjoy a magnificent selection of Indiana works.

The Olin Arts Museum at Bates,  75 Russell St., is open, free of charge, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday. 

The exhibit comes down Oct. 8, but don’t wait; allow yourself time for more than one visit. I highly recommend it.
 For more information call 207- 786-6158.