Donna and Stewart Kohl
One of the Originals
The Kohls’ sprawling front yard has one of the most notable pieces of Pop Art ever designed: Robert Indiana’s
ART sculpture. The original piece was fabricated in 1972. Only seven were made; the Robert Indiana
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Foundation retained one.
The Kohls’ piece was fabricated in Polychrome Aluminum in 2001 and installed at their Boulevard neighborhood
home some 10 years later. It came directly from Robert Indiana and his foundation, via Contessa Gallery in Cleveland.
Steve Hartman of Contessa puts the piece’s dimensions at 102 inches high (8.5 feet), 97 inches wide (a hair over eight
feet), and 50 inches deep (about four feet). It’s painted in what Hartman calls “traditional Robert Indiana red and
traditional Robert Indiana blue,” and mounted on a black base.
In contrasting ART to Indiana’s most famous piece, the iconic LOVE, Hartman says, “ART is a brilliant follow-up to
LOVE. Unlike LOVE, it is very streamlined, architectural, and abstract.” (LOVE is anything but, with the blocky letters L
and O mounted atop the V and E, with the O canted to the right. Originally created in the 1960s as a print image, it was
later famously issued as an image on a U.S. postage stamp, and fabricated as a sculpture in 1970.)
Hartman credits Indiana with being one of the original conceptual artists as well as one of the first Pop artists. Both
movements had their heyday in the mid 1960s. Indiana and Andy Warhol were the movement’s early major influences.
Warhol got most of the credit – until now; with the major Robert Indiana retrospective at the Whitney Museum of
American Art in New York this past year, his place in art history has been elevated and secured.
Indiana’s local representatives can be reached at contessagallery.com. SL