Indiana painted a series of small Yield Brother canvases in the 1960s which he dedicated to friends. Yield Brother Samuel was painted for the curator and art historian Sam Hunter.
Hunter authored numerous catalogues for exhibitions that included Indiana's work, among them New Directions in American Painting, a circulating exhibition (1963–64) organized by the Poses Institute of Fine Arts, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts; Robert Indiana: New Paintings and Sculpture, Galerie Denise René, New York, November 22–December 30, 1972; and The Popular Image: Pop Art in America, Marisa del Re Gallery and O'Hara Gallery, New York, October 26–December 9, 1995.