Artist: Robert Indiana (American, 1928-2018)
Title: "The Calumet"
Portfolio: The American Dream
*Issued unsigned
Year: 1997
Medium: Original Screenprint on Coventry paper
Limited edition: 395, (there were also 30 artist's proofs)
Printer: Marco Fine Arts Contemporary Atelier, El Segundo, CA
Publisher: Marco Fine Arts Contemporary Atelier, El Segundo, CA
Sheet size: 22" x 16.75"
Image size: 15.07" x 14"
Condition: In excellent condition
Notes:
Provenance: private collection - Düsseldorf, Germany. Comes from Indiana's 1997 "The American Dream" book portfolio of thirty screenprints. Printed in three colors. Text on verso of the following work as issued.
Robert Indiana's 1997 black leather-covered book portfolio "The American Dream" was printed and published with 30 screenprints: 6 loose each signed and numbered and 24 bound not signed and numbered, as issued. Forward by Susan Ryan, text by Michael McKenzie and poems by Robert Creeley. The book was issued within a white cardboard packing box with red and black lettering.
This image is based of Indiana's 1971 screenprint edition "The Calumet", (Sheehan No. 64, page 43), from his 1971 "Decade" series, (Sheehan No. 63-72, page 42-44). The prints in that portfolio reproduce one of Indiana's paintings from each year of the 1960's. The bear they same titles as the corresponding paintings. "The Calumet" is a 1961, 90" x 84", oil on canvas painting which is within the permanent collection of the Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA.
"The Calumet", derived from Longfellow's "Song of Hiawatha", reflects Indiana's ongoing involvement with American literary associations and sources. As interpreted, by Indiana, the schematized image of the red clay peace-pipe smoked by the Indians in Longfellow's poem symbolizes mankind's potential to eradicate war. - (Sheehan page 9). Seven stars for seven spheres, revolving like ball bearings in a universe of imagined planets intertwined by an artist's imagination. This is American Indian Indiana style, a geometry more perfect than a Choctaw blanket. Like many Indiana paintings, this work has a poetic reference - the outer rim is a line from the poem "Hiawatha" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
