In 1965, Robert Indiana was invited to propose an artwork to be featured on the Museum of Modern Art's annual Christmas card.

[1] In addition to being a painter and sculptor, Indiana made posters and prints and also designed stage sets and costumes for the Virgil Thompson and Gertrude Stein opera The Mother of Us All.

[3][4][5] After his parents divorced, he relocated to Indianapolis to live with his father so he could attend Arsenal Technical High School (1942–1946),[6][7] from which he graduated as valedictorian of his class.

[8] In New York, Indiana's romantic partner Ellsworth Kelly, whom he met in 1956, helped him find a loft on Coenties Slip.

[4][9] On Coenties Slip Kelly introduced Indiana to neighboring artists like Jack Youngerman, Agnes Martin and Cy Twombly, with whom he shared his studio for a time.

Kelly would go on to become a mentor for Indiana, and later convince him to make the shift to the hard edge style that quickly became a fan favorite.

So I think I was fated to end my life in an Odd Fellows Lodge — Robert Indiana[15]Half a century earlier, Marsden Hartley had made his escape to the same island.

[5] One day before his death, a lawsuit was filed over claims that his caretaker had isolated him from family and friends, and was marketing unauthorized reproductions of his works.

[18] Indiana's complex and multilayered work explores the power of language, American identity, and personal history, and often consists of striking, simple and direct words.

Drawing on the vocabulary of vernacular highway signs and roadside entertainments, Indiana created a body of work that appears bold and energetic.

[16] In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks, Indiana created his series of Peace Paintings which were exhibited at the Paul Kasmin Gallery in New York in 2004.

According to art historian Susan Elizabeth Ryan wrote that in 1964 LOVE had been a "more explicit four-letter word — beginning with F, and with a second letter, a U, intriguingly tilted to the right."

She adds "The two men were in the habit of exchanging postcard-size sketches, with Mr. Kelly laying down fields of color and Mr. Indiana adding large words atop the abstractions.

Indiana claimed that Kelly introduced him to hard edge saying, "This was my first head-on contact with painting of any geometric, or clean hard-edge style.

Indiana's red, blue, and green LOVE painting was then selected to appear on the Museum of Modern Art’s annual Christmas card in 1965.

Yet it instantly became a beacon of idealism, optimism, youth and revolt," although information regarding Indiana and Kelly's relationship was not publicly announced until 2013.

[39] For Valentine's Day 2011, Google paid homage to Indiana's LOVE, which was displayed in place of the search engine site's normal logo.

[41] Indiana's work has been represented by Paul Kasmin Gallery in New York City, Waddington Custot in London and Galerie Gmurzynska in Europe.

[46] Millions of television viewers saw an orange, brown, and white version of Five, one of Indiana's 1965 Numbers series, featured in an episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show during the 1971–1972 season, in which Rhoda Morgenstern redecorates Lou Grant's dated living room.

"[47] In 2014, ESPN released MECCA: The Floor That Made Milwaukee Famous, a short film in its 30 for 30 series of sports documentaries.