Mother of Us All

Robert Indiana, celebrated for his iconic “LOVE” design, entered the realm of the theater in 1966 when he served as a set and costume designer for The Mother of Us All, an adaptation of Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson’s 1947 opera about activist Susan B. Anthony during the Women’s Suffrage Movement. Billed as “An American Pop Opera,” the play was first performed at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis in 1967. After the curtain closed, Indiana memorialized his elaborate costume and set designs with a series of patriotic lithographs. From Gertrude Stein to Andrew Johnson, these prints portray a variety of suffragettes and American politicians modeling Indiana’s costume designs.