--Book Jacket.

The author argues that Indiana's strident visual language emerges from his tendency to recast his life in story and verse, a fact that unlocks complex and secret tissues of figurative meaning within the deceptively simple canvases. By illuminating the enigmas in Indiana's word and image combinations, she helps to explain the longevity of LOVE and its influence on a later generation of artists."--BOOK JACKET.

When reclusive, millionaire artist Robert Indiana died in 2018, he left behind dark rumors and scandal, as well as an estate embroiled in lawsuits and facing accusations of fraud. Here is the true story of the artist's final days, the aftermath, the deceptive world that surrounded him, and the inner workings of art as very big business. "I'm an artist, not a business man," Robert Indiana said, refusing to copyright his iconic LOVE sculpture in 1965. An odd and tortured soul, an artist who wanted both fame and solitude, Indiana surrounded himself with people to manage his life and work. Yet, he frequently changed his mind and often fired or belittled those who worked with him. By 2008, when Indiana created the sculpture HOPE--or did he?--the artist had signed away his work for others to exploit, creating doubt about whether he had even seen artwork sold for very high prices under his name. At the time of his death, Indiana left an estate worth millions--and unsettling suspicions. There were allegations of fraudulent artwork, of elder abuse, of caregivers who subjected him to horrendous living conditions. There were questions about the inconclusive autopsy and rumors that his final will had been signed under coercion. There were strong suspicions about the freeloaders who'd attached themselves to the famous artist. "In the final hours of his life," the author writes, "Robert Indiana was without the grace of a better angel, as the people closest to him covered their tracks and plotted their defenses." With unparalleled access to the key players in Indiana's life, author Bob Keyes tells a fast-paced and riveting story that provides a rare inside look into the life of an artist as well as the often, too often, unscrupulous world of high-end art. The reader is taken inside the world of art dealers, law firms, and an array of local characters in Maine whose lives intersected with the internationally revered artist living in an old Odd Fellows Hall on Vinalhaven Island. The Last Days of Robert Indiana is for anyone interested in contemporary art, business, and the perilous intersection between them. It an extraordinary window into the life and death of a singular and contradictory American artist--one whose work touched countless millions through everything from postage stamps to political campaigns to museums--even as he lived and died in isolation, with a lack of love, the loss of hope, and lots and lots of money.

An insightful and long overdue reassessment of the full scope of the career of Robert Indiana, who combined Pop Art, hard-edged abstraction, and language-based conceptualism

"Decoding Robert Indiana's work for a new generation, this revelatory book explores previously unknown autobiographical elements in the work of the Pop artist and printmaker. Famously proclaiming himself to be "an American painter of signs," Robert Indiana has created an enormous body of work, much of it boldly colored abstractions. In this incisive new examination of the artist, based on ongoing conversations with Indiana, art historian Martin Krause sifts through autobiographical clues within the artist's work and finds a wealth of affecting and affectionate references to Indiana's childhood, literary heroes, and the cultural icons of his generation. In addition, a penetrating essay by Pop art scholar John Wilmerding deconstructs Indiana's use of geometric shapes, making unexpected connections that enhance Krause's thesis. Accompanied by reproductions of more than 50 prints from the period 1960-2010--and focusing specifically on series such as Decade: Autoportraits, Vinalhaven Suite, and The Hartley Elegies as well as the "Love" and "Hope" images and studies of Marilyn Monroe, Picasso, and the Brooklyn Bridge--Krause's decryption of Indiana's visual language provides telling insight into the work of this quintessentially American artist"--

"On the basis of a study of "east wind" in the Bible -- "whirlwind" in Job -- Janzen proposes that the prominence God gives to rain in Job 38, with its renewal of the parched earth and the ensuing vigor of all forms of life, signals God's response to Job's thirst, heals Job's bitterness, and restores him to a life at the end of which he dies contented. Janzen demonstrates how life-crippling bitterness is transcended and hope in life's worthwhileness is restored in the face of grievous evil. The resolution of the Joban question lies not in a vindication of divine justice but, rather, in God's renewal of Job's appetite for life. Janzen underscores this interpretation with a candid epilogue on his own struggle with aggressive prostate cancer, which enabled him to connect personally with Job's story and to find a fresh and illuminating grace."--From publisher description.

A resonant new collection of poetry from Adrian Matejka, author of The Big Smoke, a finalist for The Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award Map to the Stars, the fourth poetry collection from National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize finalist Adrian Matejka, navigates the tensions between race, geography, and poverty in America during the Reagan Era. In the time of space shuttles and the Strategic Defense Initiative, outer space is the only place equality seems possible, even as the stars serve to both guide and obscure the earthly complexities of masculinity and migration. In Matejka's poems, hope is the link between the convoluted realities of being poor and the inspiring possibilities of transcendence and escape—whether it comes from Star Trek, the dream of being one of the first black astronauts, or Sun Ra's cosmic jazz.