‘Andy Warhol and Robert Indiana’, 1963 - WILLIAM JOHN KENNEDY (WJK)

Andy Warhol and Robert Indiana in conversation in front of Ad Reinhardt artwork at ‘Americans’, 1963 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York City, curated by Dorothy Miller

Silver gelatin Fiber PRINT
35 x 49 cm

FRAMED
54.5 x 70 x 3 cm

34/60

Lost to the world for almost 40 years, the images in UNSEEN INDIANA capture the legendary artist ROBERT INDIANA in the nascent stages of a career that would come to redefine the landscape of contemporary art – one that boldly tackled personal identity and consumerism in an era in thrall to the newly discovered power of mass advertising.

The late-WILLIAM JOHN KENNEDY was a successful commercial photographer throughout the 70s and 80s, but when he met the trailblazers Robert Indiana and Andy Warhol in 1963, he was assistant and then studio manager to the great VOGUE fashion photographer CLIFFORD COFFIN. He first met Robert Indiana at the opening of the renowned exhibition ‘Americans’ at The MUSEUM Of MODERN ART (MoMA) in New York, and, soon afterwards, began to shoot the artist in his studio on the Coenties Slip. This relationship would swiftly lead him to WARHOL and The Factory – the creative nucleus of the Pop Art movement.