Robert Indiana American, 1928-2018
ONE Through ZERO (The Ten Numbers), 1978-2003
Stainless steel on steel base
10 parts, 45.7 x 45.7 x 25.4 cm. (18 x 18 x 10 in.) each (including base)
Edition of 8 + 2 AP
Copyright The Artist
Robert Indiana’s ONE Through ZERO (The Ten Numbers), 1978–2003, is one of the clearest declarations of the artist’s fascination with the power of numbers. In this stainless-steel edition, each numeral...
Robert Indiana’s ONE Through ZERO (The Ten Numbers), 1978–2003, is one of the clearest declarations of the artist’s fascination with the power of numbers. In this stainless-steel edition, each numeral rises with a clean, architectural presence that catches light and shifts with its surroundings. The series charts a full cycle of life through numbers one to zero; a theme Indiana returned to repeatedly across his career. Works executed on this scale remain exceptionally rare, with all except three editions in this scale held in private collections.
Indiana’s attachment to numbers developed in childhood and was shaped by an unsettled upbringing. By the age of seventeen, he had lived in twenty-one homes. Numbers became fixed points within this shifting environment, each linked to concrete references such as road signs, street addresses and significant personal milestones.
During the 1960s, Indiana began to incorporate numbers into his sculptural assemblages and paintings, and by the middle of the decade they had become a defining motif. The first large-scale Number sculptures were produced between 1980 and 1983 for a commission in Indianapolis. These works measured 243.8 cm (96 in., 8 ft) in painted aluminium and were later donated to the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Indiana subsequently developed several further series in different scales and finishes, including a 183 cm (72 in., 6 ft) group exhibited along Park Avenue, New York, in 2003 as part of Art in the Parks, and again in London in 2013 for Sculpture in the City. He also produced 83 cm (32.7 in.) versions and a 45.7 cm (18 in.) series, the latter including the present work.
The monumental ONE Through ZERO sculptures were mounted across Spain and Portugal between 2006 and 2008, and in Milan during the 2008 exhibition Robert Indiana a Milano at the Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea. Shown on major boulevards in Madrid, Valencia, Bilbao and Lisbon, the Ten Numbers were absorbed into each urban setting and offered the public a distinct local encounter with the work. In 2018, the series was installed in Buffalo, New York, in conjunction with a retrospective of Indiana’s sculpture at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, formerly the Albright Knox Art Gallery, and in 2023 at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield, as part of the major exhibition Robert Indiana: Sculpture 1958-2018.
Indiana regarded numbers as part of a broader allegorical structure. In his symbolic order, one signifies birth, while zero represents death. Together they establish a cyclical narrative that shapes the logic of the series. This conceptual framework links Indiana’s sculptures to a wider nineteenth-century American tradition of visual sequences charting the stages of life. He drew particularly on Nathaniel Currier’s 19th century lithograph The Life and Age of Man, in which ten figures rise in an arch from infancy to old age. Indiana adapted this system to his own purposes while preserving its essential trajectory. He placed five and six at the midpoint to denote the prime of life and ended the cycle not with ten but with zero, which introduces a more direct reflection on mortality and return.
The forms of the numbers were inspired by a printer’s calendar that Indiana discovered in his loft in Coenties Slip. Each numeral has a depth roughly half its width, giving the sculptures a sense of weight that contrasts with their smooth and reductive surfaces. This proportion grants them an almost architectural presence and allows them to operate both as independent signs and as components within a larger sequence. Like letters that can be recombined to generate new meanings, the numbers shift in significance according to their arrangement and proximity.
The rarity of ONE Through ZERO, combined with the clarity and discipline of its formal language, secures the series as a touchstone within Indiana’s wider practice and within the broader history of American sculpture.
Indiana’s attachment to numbers developed in childhood and was shaped by an unsettled upbringing. By the age of seventeen, he had lived in twenty-one homes. Numbers became fixed points within this shifting environment, each linked to concrete references such as road signs, street addresses and significant personal milestones.
During the 1960s, Indiana began to incorporate numbers into his sculptural assemblages and paintings, and by the middle of the decade they had become a defining motif. The first large-scale Number sculptures were produced between 1980 and 1983 for a commission in Indianapolis. These works measured 243.8 cm (96 in., 8 ft) in painted aluminium and were later donated to the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Indiana subsequently developed several further series in different scales and finishes, including a 183 cm (72 in., 6 ft) group exhibited along Park Avenue, New York, in 2003 as part of Art in the Parks, and again in London in 2013 for Sculpture in the City. He also produced 83 cm (32.7 in.) versions and a 45.7 cm (18 in.) series, the latter including the present work.
The monumental ONE Through ZERO sculptures were mounted across Spain and Portugal between 2006 and 2008, and in Milan during the 2008 exhibition Robert Indiana a Milano at the Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea. Shown on major boulevards in Madrid, Valencia, Bilbao and Lisbon, the Ten Numbers were absorbed into each urban setting and offered the public a distinct local encounter with the work. In 2018, the series was installed in Buffalo, New York, in conjunction with a retrospective of Indiana’s sculpture at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, formerly the Albright Knox Art Gallery, and in 2023 at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield, as part of the major exhibition Robert Indiana: Sculpture 1958-2018.
Indiana regarded numbers as part of a broader allegorical structure. In his symbolic order, one signifies birth, while zero represents death. Together they establish a cyclical narrative that shapes the logic of the series. This conceptual framework links Indiana’s sculptures to a wider nineteenth-century American tradition of visual sequences charting the stages of life. He drew particularly on Nathaniel Currier’s 19th century lithograph The Life and Age of Man, in which ten figures rise in an arch from infancy to old age. Indiana adapted this system to his own purposes while preserving its essential trajectory. He placed five and six at the midpoint to denote the prime of life and ended the cycle not with ten but with zero, which introduces a more direct reflection on mortality and return.
The forms of the numbers were inspired by a printer’s calendar that Indiana discovered in his loft in Coenties Slip. Each numeral has a depth roughly half its width, giving the sculptures a sense of weight that contrasts with their smooth and reductive surfaces. This proportion grants them an almost architectural presence and allows them to operate both as independent signs and as components within a larger sequence. Like letters that can be recombined to generate new meanings, the numbers shift in significance according to their arrangement and proximity.
The rarity of ONE Through ZERO, combined with the clarity and discipline of its formal language, secures the series as a touchstone within Indiana’s wider practice and within the broader history of American sculpture.