Offered is a framed and signed in pencil and printed (Robert) “Indiana Autoportait 1973” original lithograph “Skid Row”. Decade: Autoportrait, 1969, 1973
Lithograph in colors on off-white wove paper. Edition of 125.
Indiana titled the work “Autoportrait”, as it depicts his self-portrait in words, colors, shapes and numbers, using his language of hard edge geometric abstraction. With respect to the colors and imagery Indiana portrayed the numbers and colors as, “Nine is the number before death and yellow and black is beware danger.” The number 69 depicted in the centre of the piece is deliberate and also the same year that his Star of Hope was founded in Penobscot Bay. Indiana’s daughter, Ellen Elisofon, Ellen Elisofon, his daughter, accompanied the artist to the island from Skowhegan, and as explained by Indiana, “I was still, however on skid row, which again, is the Bowery.” The words: “HALLELUJAH VINALHAVEN” boldly featured in this lithograph refer to Robert Indiana’s discovering his final residence in an idyllic place called “Star of Hope” in Vinalhaven, Maine in the late 60s. The words “Skid Row”, refers to the Bowery in Manhattan, a neighbourhood known at the time for its bums, drugs and down-and-out of the late 1960s. The work also reveals the three letters “IND” in the middle — to let the viewer know it is autobiographical
