San Antonio, TX- In February, the McNay Art Museum presents Robert Indiana: Beyond LOVE, a survey exhibition organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. The McNay is the only other venue in the nation to host this critically acclaimed exhibition, on view February 5 through May 25, 2014.
Beyond LOVE presents the work of Robert Indiana, which is characterized by bold, simple, and brightly colored numbers, letters, symbols, and short words. Indiana is also widely known for his iconic LOVE sculptures and paintings. However, in Beyond LOVE, more than 100 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper from public and private collections from around the world place Indiana’s work into a broader perspective by presenting the artist’s full range of work over the course of five decades.
Described as “shockingly exciting” by the New York Times when it opened in September at the Whitney, Beyond LOVE has received critical acclaim from the Wall Street Journal, Art Newspaper,
Vogue magazine, and the BBC, as well as Good Morning America.
The McNay is proud to be one of the important lending institutions to Beyond LOVE. Included from the McNay’s collection are 12 costume designs from the opera, The Mother of Us All, which chronicles the life of suffragette Susan B. Anthony; a painting featuring Marilyn Monroe titled, The Metamorphosis of Norma Jean Mortenson, 1967; and Decade: Autoportrait, 1961.
Director of the McNay, William J. Chiego comments, “These works highlight a major theme of the exhibition: Indiana’s work as a commentary on the social and political issues of the 1960s, as well as the concept of the American Dream. Each was given to the McNay by the late Robert L. B. Tobin, one of San Antonio’s greatest arts patrons, and a major supporter and friend of Indiana.”
In addition to Beyond LOVE, the McNay honors Robert Indiana and his work with two complementary exhibitions. Robert Indiana: The Mother of Us All, focuses on Indiana’s costumes for Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson’s opera about Susan B. Anthony, and Robert Indiana’s Hartley Elegies, features 10 monumental screenprints by the artist, exploring the relationship between Marsden Hartley and Karl von Freyburg.
About the McNay
Built by artist and educator Marion Koogler McNay in the 1920s, the Spanish Colonial Revival-style home opened as Texas’ first museum of modern art in 1954. Today more than 100,000 visitors a year enjoy works by 20th-century masters including Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Edward Hopper, Georgia O’Keeffe, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. In June 2008, the museum opened the 45,000-square-foot Jane and Arthur Stieren Center for Exhibition designed by internationally renowned French architect Jean-Paul Viguier. Nearly doubling the McNay’s exhibition space, the Stieren Center includes three separate outdoor sculpture galleries, the first in South Texas.