Robert Indiana’s Decade: Autoportrait paintings are a series of autobiographical portraits that he began in 1971. The works, which the artist considered a throwback to his American Dream series, consist of three groups of ten paintings in different sizes: 24-, 48-, and 72-inches. The 24- and 48-inch works made their debut in Robert Indiana: New Paintings and Sculpture, held at the Galerie Denise René, New York, November 22–December 30, 1972.
The series provides a portrait of his life in the 1960s, and includes references to important names, places, and events. Decade: Autoportrait 1962 includes a reference to “The Battery,” a waterfront park located at the southern tip of Manhattan. It is one of the few instances where the place referenced is not one where Indiana lived, but instead a place which he visited frequently while living on Coenties Slip—in a number of his journal entries from the late 1950s and early 1960s he mentions spending time there.
“Steve” refers to the artist Stephen Durkee, a friend of the artist who lived nearby, first on Coenties Slip and then Fulton Street, until spring 1962, when he moved to Garnerville, New York. “Jack” and “Juke” are words found in Indiana’s painting The Black Diamond American Dream #2, which the artist completed that year and which was exhibited at the Sidney Janis Gallery, New York in International Exhibition of the New Realists, October 31–December 1, 1962.