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Lot Essay
This work will be included in the Robert Indiana catalogue raisonné being prepared by Simon Salama-Caro.
Eight is a visually pleasing painting. Perfectly square, the canvas is barely able to contain the wide-bodied circular figures of the number eight. The blue and greens evenly balance the red of the eight and are precisely painted on the canvas, creating a flawlessly seamless image. Jasper Johns was also working with numbers at this point but Johns and Indiana had drastically different influences on their respective relationships with numbers. Johns was drawn to numbers as a usable form, pre-determined by language. Indiana has said that his work is autobiographical and growing up as an adopted child constantly moving home left a lasting impression on the artist. Indiana's juvenile interest in counting has transformed into a more mature interest in seriality, very evident within Indiana's number paintings.
"For Indiana, numbers are signifiers in his poetic and autobiographic programs. He dates his interest in numbers to his childhood, to Carmen's [Indiana's mother] restless quest for a satisfying house and his serial experience of home: 'It got to be that this was house number six and this was house number thirteen. I was very concerned about it as a child and got even more interested in it later'" (S. E. Ryan, Robert Indiana: Figures of Speech, New Haven, 2000, p. 151).
Eight is a visually pleasing painting. Perfectly square, the canvas is barely able to contain the wide-bodied circular figures of the number eight. The blue and greens evenly balance the red of the eight and are precisely painted on the canvas, creating a flawlessly seamless image. Jasper Johns was also working with numbers at this point but Johns and Indiana had drastically different influences on their respective relationships with numbers. Johns was drawn to numbers as a usable form, pre-determined by language. Indiana has said that his work is autobiographical and growing up as an adopted child constantly moving home left a lasting impression on the artist. Indiana's juvenile interest in counting has transformed into a more mature interest in seriality, very evident within Indiana's number paintings.
"For Indiana, numbers are signifiers in his poetic and autobiographic programs. He dates his interest in numbers to his childhood, to Carmen's [Indiana's mother] restless quest for a satisfying house and his serial experience of home: 'It got to be that this was house number six and this was house number thirteen. I was very concerned about it as a child and got even more interested in it later'" (S. E. Ryan, Robert Indiana: Figures of Speech, New Haven, 2000, p. 151).