LOVE (Red/Blue)

From a church motto to four letters

Robert Indiana was born in Indiana on September 12, 1928, and adopted as an infant as Robert Clark. He moved often as a child, served in the U.S. Army Air Forces, studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Skowhegan School in Maine and the Edinburgh College of Art, and then renamed himself after his home state.

The word love entered his work long before the logo. He stacked LO over VE in poems written in 1958, painted 4-Star Love in 1961, and in 1964 painted Love Is God on a diamond-shaped canvas, inverting the "God is Love" inscription of the Christian Science churches of his childhood. "God is Love is spelled out in every church," he said.

In 1964 he began experimenting with the stacked image in colored-pencil drawings and rubbings that he sent to friends as Christmas cards; one, given to the critic Gene Swenson, is now at the Spencer Museum of Art in Kansas. The art historian Susan Elizabeth Ryan has written that in 1964 the image was briefly a more explicit four-letter word beginning with F, with a tilted U.

His colors were personal. Indiana said the red and green came from the sign of the oil company's gas station where his father had worked, seen "against the blue Hoosier sky." His former partner Ellsworth Kelly, whose 1963 painting Red Blue Green is also thought to have influenced the palette, introduced him to hard-edge painting; the two exchanged postcard-sized sketches, Kelly laying down color and Indiana adding words.

A Christmas card, a show and a stamp

In May 1965 the first LOVE painting offered for sale appeared in a solo show in Los Angeles. That November, the Museum of Modern Art released a Christmas card carrying a red, blue and green LOVE, chosen from several 12-inch square canvases Indiana submitted. The artist's estate stresses that the image was not originally created for the card, though it was the card that first carried it to a mass audience. Indiana later called it "the most profitable Christmas card the museum ever published." One auction catalogue essay places the museum's request after the 1966 aluminum sculpture; the artist's estate and most other sources give 1965.

In 1966 a gallery mounted Indiana's LOVE show of paintings, drawings and small sculptures, and he made his first LOVE sculpture in aluminum with an editions publisher. The 1966 show poster was the first silkscreen of the image. In 1970 he completed the first monumental LOVE, in Cor-Ten steel, now at the Indianapolis Museum of Art; it toured to Boston City Hall and Central Park, and a photograph dated November 29, 1971, shows Indiana overseeing the installation of a monumental LOVE in Central Park.

On January 26, 1973, the U.S. Postal Service issued an eight-cent LOVE stamp from Indiana's design, unveiled at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Sources disagree on how many were printed: the Smithsonian's National Postal Museum says more than 300 million, while a 1974 newspaper report gives 425 million over two years.

Everywhere, and a burden

LOVE spoke to the peace-and-love generation and quickly became a sign of the times. The Broadway cast of Hair posed in front of a LOVE sculpture; the design turned up on cufflinks, rings, album covers and book jackets. Indiana had not secured copyright, and cheap copies such as aluminum paperweights earned him nothing.

The popularity cost him critically. Peers saw the small LOVE multiples as pandering, and the knockoffs made it worse. "Everybody knows my LOVE, but they don't have the slightest idea what I look like," he said in 1976. "I'm practically anonymous." In 1978 he left New York for the island of Vinalhaven, off the coast of Maine, where he spent the rest of his life. "LOVE bit me," he told NPR in 2014. "It was a marvelous idea, but it was also a terrible mistake. It became too popular."

The image kept multiplying in other languages: AHAVA in Hebrew, in Cor-Ten steel, for the Israel Museum in Jerusalem in 1977, and AMOR in Spanish, shown by the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2015 for Pope Francis's visit. In 2008 Indiana reworked the formula as HOPE for Barack Obama's presidential campaign.

The red and blue sculptures

Indiana made LOVE sculptures in many sizes and colorways. The Utah Museum of Fine Arts counts more than 50 sculptures in 7 sizes and 28 color combinations, and calls red outside with blue inside perhaps the most iconic color combination. One sale catalogue describes the blue as a blue-violet that sets up a subtle optical vibration against the red.

Each size is a separate edition. A 12-foot red and blue LOVE, the largest scale Indiana made, was produced in an edition of five plus artist's proofs; the University of Utah's example is number five of five, and the museum says artist's proofs are at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art and the Amorepacific Museum of Art in Seoul. The museum counts seven examples in that size and color; a campus newspaper report said nine. A 36-inch version was made in an edition of six plus four artist's proofs and two hors commerce, and an 18-inch version in an edition of eight plus two artist's proofs.

To identify one, look for the stamp. Examples sold publicly carry the artist's name, edition number, a date and a fabricator mark stamped on an interior edge of a letter, for example "© 1966-1999 R INDIANA 6/6" inside the E, or a date and number inside the V. The stamped date range often differs from the year of fabrication: the 36-inch 6/6 was stamped 1966-1999 but executed in 1998, and an 18-inch 5/8 stamped 1966-1999 was fabricated in 1997. The Robert Indiana catalogue raisonné, edited by Simon Salama-Caro, lists the 18-inch red and blue edition as E-1966-16 and the 36-inch as E-1966-18.

Dates also vary in the market record. The auction-record sculpture of 2011 is described in one price summary as a 1990 painted aluminum LOVE (Red/Blue) from a series of three, a date and edition size not confirmed by any other source reviewed here.

The market, the lawsuits and a move to Utah

On May 12, 2011, a red-and-blue painted aluminum LOVE sold at auction in New York for $4,114,500, Indiana's auction record. That year his work made $19.2 million at auction, the peak of his market; total sales had crashed 84 percent in 2009 after the financial crisis before rebounding. Of 39 Indiana works that had sold for more than $1 million at auction by 2022, only 10 were not versions of LOVE.

Indiana died in 2018. Shortly before his death, the foundation that had represented him, which owns the copyright to some of his best-known works, sued an art seller and his editions company, along with the artist's caretaker, alleging they had isolated him, taken advantage of him and produced unauthorized reproductions of his work. The parties reached a settlement in 2021, though further motions followed. The dispute cast doubt over some late works, and his auction totals fell in the years after his death.

Smaller red and blue casts also come to market. A 36-inch example numbered 6/6 sold at auction in New York on May 17, 2024, for $882,000, well above its $400,000 to $600,000 estimate. An 18-inch 5/8 was offered in London in March 2026.

The most visible red and blue LOVE stood at the corner of Sixth Avenue and 55th Street in Midtown Manhattan for about two decades and was shown outside Rockefeller Center in 2023. When it became available in 2024, the University of Utah bought it for $4.5 million, roughly half from the State of Utah and half from private donors. It appeared on the Utah Museum of Fine Arts lawn overnight on February 4, 2026, and was formally unveiled on February 7.

The numbers

Medium

Polychrome aluminum

Dimensions

Editions include 18 x 18 x 9 in., 36 x 36 x 18 in., six-foot, 8-foot (96 x 96 x 48 in.) and 12 x 12 x 6 ft sizes

Catalogue raisonné

Salama-Caro, Robert Indiana Catalogue Raisonné: E-1966-16 (18 in.), E-1966-18 (36 in.)

Public collections

12-foot 5/5 at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts; artist's proofs at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art and the Amorepacific Museum of Art, Seoul; a six-foot example at the BYU Museum of Art

2011 record example

Buyer not disclosed

Timeline

1. Sep 12, 1928

   Robert Indiana is born in Indiana and adopted as Robert Clark.

2. 1958

   Indiana stacks LO over VE in a series of poems.

3. 1961

   He paints 4-Star Love.

4. 1964

   He paints Love Is God and sends stacked LOVE drawings and rubbings to friends as Christmas cards.

5. May 1965

   The first LOVE painting offered for sale is shown in Los Angeles.

6. Nov 1965

   The Museum of Modern Art releases its red, blue and green LOVE Christmas card.

7. 1966

   Indiana's LOVE show opens; the first aluminum LOVE sculpture is made.

8. 1970

   The first monumental LOVE, in Cor-Ten steel, is completed; it is now in Indianapolis.

9. Nov 29, 1971

   Indiana oversees installation of a monumental LOVE in Central Park.

10. Jan 26, 1973

    The eight-cent LOVE stamp is issued.

11. 1977

    A Hebrew version, AHAVA, is made for the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

12. 1978

    Indiana leaves New York for Vinalhaven, Maine.

13. 1997

    An 18-inch red and blue LOVE, numbered 5/8, is fabricated.

14. 1998

    A 36-inch red and blue LOVE, numbered 6/6, is executed; a 12-foot red, blue and green LOVE stands outside the Nice retrospective.

15. May 12, 2011

    A red-and-blue painted aluminum LOVE sets Indiana's auction record, $4,114,500, in New York.

16. 2018

    Indiana dies, four decades after moving to Maine.

17. 2023

    The 12-foot red and blue LOVE from Sixth Avenue is shown outside Rockefeller Center.

18. May 17, 2024

    A 36-inch red and blue LOVE, 6/6, sells at auction in New York for $882,000.

19. 2024

    The University of Utah agrees to buy the 12-foot red and blue LOVE for $4.5 million.

20. Feb 7, 2026

    The sculpture is unveiled at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts in Salt Lake City.

The world in 1963

• 1963

  Ellsworth Kelly paints Red Blue Green, believed to have influenced LOVE's colors.

• 1963

  James Baldwin publishes The Fire Next Time, with its reflections on love as "a state of being."

• 1966

  LOVE's first show draws national media attention, including coverage on NBC.

• 1973

  The LOVE stamp is unveiled at the Philadelphia Museum of Art ahead of Valentine's Day.

• 2008

  Indiana creates HOPE for Barack Obama's presidential campaign.

• 2009

  After the 2008 financial crisis, Indiana's total auction sales fall 84 percent before recovering in 2011.

• Feb 14, 2011

  Google marks Valentine's Day with a homage to LOVE in place of its logo.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, LOVE (Red/Blue) is number 23 of 100 in the art entries of the FLOAT 100. 88 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (23 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• LOVE was not created for the Museum of Modern Art's 1965 Christmas card; Indiana had already sent it to friends as a homemade card in 1964.
• The red and green came from the sign of the gas station where Indiana's father worked.
• Indiana never secured copyright on LOVE, and copies such as aluminum paperweights earned him nothing.
• "LOVE bit me," Indiana said in 2014. "It became too popular."
• The 12-foot red and blue LOVE that stood on Sixth Avenue for about 20 years now lives on the University of Utah campus.
• Many aluminum LOVEs are stamped "1966-1999" even when they were fabricated in 1997 or 1998.
• Of the 39 Indiana works that had made more than $1 million at auction by 2022, 29 were versions of LOVE.