Wanda Corn, Robert and Ruth Halperin Professor Emerita in Art History, Stanford University, explores Indiana’s admiration for Gertrude Stein and her use of language in the lecture The Naked Word: Robert Indiana's LOVE and Gertrude Stein's ROSE.
On Mother’s Day 1964, Robert Indiana presented a rare figurative painting entitled Mother and Father at a solo exhibition. Wishing to capitalize on the theme of motherhood, he arranged music at the opening of Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein’s opera The Mother of Us All about Susan B. Anthony’s campaign for women’s suffrage.