Past Exhibitions
April 23, 2004 - July 04, 2004
Robert Indiana 66: Paintings and Sculpture
The number 66 ties Robert Indiana to Bartlesville, Oklahoma through Phillips 66 -- the company where his father, Earl Clark, worked. Indiana’s father had a long connection with the Midwestern oil industry, originally running a filling station outside Indianapolis. “There were many more filling stations back then than there are now. In my youth the country was dotted with filling stations, they had a certain style which has recently come back, the covered station. The filling station with covered pump looked very antiquated,” recalls Indiana. Indeed, the station had a huge impact on the young Indiana. He created several drawings and prints of such stations. Indiana’s father went on to work for Trimble Oil, but the company collapsed in the Depression. 
Reflecting on his childhood memories of the Phillips 66 station, “It was very vivid-that vivid huge sign for Phillips 66 in the sky. In Indianapolis the Phillips station was in the middle of the city, right where the railroad came in, a circle with a flowerbed in the center and looming over it was this big 66, the sky was very blue. This must have been the subconscious memory when I was invited to do a Christmas card for the Museum of Modern Art in New York and used this red, blue and green. All the ‘LOVE’ paintings followed from this card, the red and green seem to have some effect on the optical nerves.” Indeed the design of the original Phillips 66 sign deliberately made use of the strident effect produced by the clashing combination of these two tones.
Soon to arrive in Bartlesville will be Indiana’s first sculpture of 66, located in the Phillips Company heartland. It is featured in Robert Indiana 66: Paintings and Sculpture at the Price Tower Arts Center April 23-July 4. The exhibition Robert Indiana 66: Paintings and Sculpture is guest curated by art critic Adrian Dannatt and organized by Price Tower Arts Center as part of its groundbreaking Contemporary Artists Initiative. Included in this exhibition is major work by Indiana such as the 1960s LOVE series, featured on United States postal stamps and the premier of a monumental new outdoor sculpture, Sixty-Six (2003-2004). Exhibition sponsor is the Tulsa World and Lorton Family.
