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Another part of the "ceremonial room," which contains some of Indiana's most famous work:  the paper maquette for his Love sculpture (1966); Hallelujah (1969, acrylic on linen); and a print from The Harley Elegies series (1990).

During the first twenty-one years of his life, Indiana lived in seventeen homes, shuttling across the state of Indiana from parent to bankrupted parent.  After his ex-aunt murdered his grandmother, Indiana took shelter with his mortician uncle, moved here and there to study art, ran off to join the air force, which at least enabled him to study art under the G.I. Bill, and later traveled to Europe on a fellowship.  Through it all, the young Robert Clark exhibited extraordinary stamina and a peculiar vision. By the time he moved to New York in 1954, he had educated and groomed himself to become an all American poet and painter and an advocate of brotherly love.  

In 1954, Indiana wrote, typeset, and published a poem whose first line was simply "Love." His early heroes were the great American writers Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, and Hart Crane and visual artists Charles Demuth and Marsden Harley (whose paintings he admired for their adventurous use of letters and numbers). In the 1960's, Indiana lifted lines from novels and poems of Melville and Crane that eulogized New York and painted them reverently into his pop portraits of the city.  Whitman's words, which also appeared in early canvases, especially stirred the young artist. I Hear America Singing — with its romantic evocation of good-hearted American people from  different walks of life singing their "varied carols" and "strong melodious (continued on page 94)

THE CLEAREST EXAMPLES OF THE POP AESTHETIC   

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