The Isolation Artist
Scandal, Deception, and the Last Days of Robert Indiana
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Narrated by:
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Traber Burns
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By:
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Bob Keyes
About this listen
When reclusive millionaire artist Robert Indiana died in 2018, he left behind dark rumors and scandal, as well as an estate embroiled in lawsuits and facing accusations of fraud. Here is the true story of the artist’s final days, the aftermath, the deceptive world that surrounded him, and the inner workings of art as very big business.
“I’m an artist, not a business man,” Robert Indiana said, refusing to copyright his iconic LOVE sculpture in 1965. An odd and tortured soul, an artist who wanted both fame and solitude, Indiana surrounded himself with people to manage his life and work. Yet, he frequently changed his mind and often fired or belittled those who worked with him. By 2008, when Indiana created the sculpture HOPE - or did he? - the artist had signed away his work for others to exploit, creating doubt about whether he had even seen artwork sold for very high prices under his name.
At the time of his death, Indiana left an estate worth millions - and unsettling suspicions. There were allegations of fraudulent artwork, of elder abuse, of caregivers who subjected him to horrendous living conditions. There were questions about the inconclusive autopsy and rumors that his final will had been signed under coercion. There were strong suspicions about the freeloaders who’d attached themselves to the famous artist. “In the final hours of his life,” the author writes, “Robert Indiana was without the grace of a better angel, as the people closest to him covered their tracks and plotted their defenses.”
With unparalleled access to the key players in Indiana’s life, author Bob Keyes tells a fast-paced and riveting story that provides a rare inside look into the life of an artist as well as the often, too often, unscrupulous world of high-end art. The listener is taken inside the world of art dealers, law firms, and an array of local characters in Maine whose lives intersected with the internationally revered artist living in an old Odd Fellows Hall on Vinalhaven Island.
The Isolation Artist is for anyone interested in contemporary art, business, and the perilous intersection between them. It an extraordinary window into the life and death of a singular and contradictory American artist - one whose work touched countless millions through everything from postage stamps to political campaigns to museums - even as he lived and died in isolation, with a lack of love, the loss of hope, and lots and lots of money.
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Fabulous story, terrible narration almost ruined
- By Sharonia on 02-24-13
By: Laney Salisbury, and others
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The Map Thief
- The Gripping Story of an Esteemed Rare-Map Dealer Who Made Millions Stealing Priceless Maps
- By: Michael Blanding
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Maps have long exerted a special fascination on viewers - both as beautiful works of art and as practical tools to navigate the world. But to those who collect them, the map trade can be a cutthroat business, inhabited by quirky and sometimes disreputable characters in search of a finite number of extremely rare objects.
Once considered a respectable antiquarian map dealer, E. Forbes Smiley spent years doubling as a map thief - until he was finally arrested slipping maps out of books in the Yale University library.
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A Study of the Strangeness of People
- By Carole T. on 12-10-14
By: Michael Blanding
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Inside Scientology
- The Story of America's Most Secretive Religion
- By: Janet Reitman
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 15 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Scientology, created in 1954 by a prolific sci-fi writer named L. Ron Hubbard, claims to be the world's fastest-growing religion, with millions of members around the world and huge financial holdings. Its celebrity believers keep its profile high, and its teams of "volunteer ministers" offer aid at disaster sites such as Haiti and the World Trade Center. But Scientology is also a notably closed faith, harassing journalists and others through litigation and intimidation, even infiltrating the highest levels of government to further its goals.
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My cup of tea.
- By MWMcCabe on 08-09-11
By: Janet Reitman
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The Man in the Glass House
- Philip Johnson, Architect of the Modern Century
- By: Mark Lamster
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 17 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Award-winning architectural critic and biographer Mark Lamster's The Man in the Glass House lifts the veil on Johnson's controversial and endlessly contradictory life to tell the story of a charming yet deeply flawed man. A roller-coaster tale of the perils of wealth, privilege, and ambition, this book probes the dynamics of American culture that made him so powerful and tells the story of the built environment in modern America.
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Disappointing!
- By David G Dempsey on 07-12-19
By: Mark Lamster
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The Liar's Ball
- The Extraordinary Saga of How One Building Broke the World's Toughest Tycoons
- By: Vicky Ward
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 6 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Harry Macklowe is one of the most notorious wheelers and dealers of the real-estate world, and The Liar's Ball is the story of the gamblers and thieves who populate his world. Watch as Harry makes the gutsy bid for midtown Manhattan's famous GM building and puts almost no money down, landing the billion-dollar transaction that made him the poster child for New York's real-estate royalty. Listen in on the secret conversations, back-door deals, and blackmail that put Macklowe and his cronies on top - and set them up for an enormous fall.
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Excellent. Hope Biden Gets Covered Next
- By greenemann on 07-29-21
By: Vicky Ward
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You Never Give Me Your Money
- The Beatles After the Breakup
- By: Peter Doggett
- Narrated by: Shaun Grindell
- Length: 14 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Acclaimed journalist Peter Doggett recounts the previously untold story of the dramatic final chapter in the lives, loves, and legal battles of John, Paul, George, and Ringo - a.k.a. The Beatles - from their breakup in 1969 to the present day. Called "refreshingly straightforward and highly readable" by the Daily Telegraph (London), You Never Give Me Your Money is the dramatic and intimate story of the breakup and aftermath of The Fab Four as it's never been told before.
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Four human beings
- By Tad Davis on 10-02-20
By: Peter Doggett
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Empty Mansions
- The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune
- By: Bill Dedman, Paul Clark Newell Jr.
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
- Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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When Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bill Dedman noticed in 2009 a grand home for sale, unoccupied for nearly 60 years, he stumbled through a surprising portal into American history. Empty Mansions is a rich mystery of wealth and loss, connecting the Gilded Age opulence of the 19th century with a 21st-century battle over a $300 million inheritance. At its heart is a reclusive heiress named Huguette Clark, a woman so secretive that, at the time of her death at age 104, no new photograph of her had been seen in decades.
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Fascinating, But Know This...
- By Karen K on 04-08-15
By: Bill Dedman, and others
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The Hunt for History
- On the Trail of the World's Lost Treasures - from the Letters of Lincoln, Churchill, and Einstein to the Secret Recordings On-Board JFK's Air Force One
- By: Nathan Raab, Luke Barr
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Nathan Raab, America’s preeminent rare documents dealer, delivers a “diverting account of treasure hunting in the fast lane” (The Wall Street Journal) that recounts his years as the Sherlock Holmes of historical artifacts, questing after precious finds and determining their authenticity.
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I wished it was longer
- By NANAS on 04-15-20
By: Nathan Raab, and others
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The Lost Gutenberg
- The Astounding Story of One Book's Five-Hundred-Year Odyssey
- By: Margaret Leslie Davis
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 6 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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For rare-book collectors, an original copy of the Gutenberg Bible - of which there are fewer than 50 in existence - represents the ultimate prize. Here, Margaret Leslie Davis recounts five centuries in the life of one copy, from its creation by Johannes Gutenberg, through the hands of monks, an earl, the Worcestershire sauce king, and a nuclear physicist to its ultimate resting place, in a steel vault in Tokyo.
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Spare me
- By Dr. Small on 05-04-20
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The Last Lone Inventor
- A Tale of Genius, Deceit, and the Birth of Television
- By: Evan I. Schwartz
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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In a story that is both of its time and timeless, Evan I. Schwartz tells a tale of genius versus greed, innocence versus deceit, and independent brilliance versus corporate arrogance. Many men have laid claim to the title "father of television," but Philo T. Farnsworth is the true genius behind what may be the most influential invention of our time. Driven by his obsession to demonstrate his idea, by the age of 20 Farnsworth was operating his own laboratory above a garage in San Francisco and filing for patents. The resulting publicity caught the attention of RCA tycoon David Sarnoff, who became determined to control television in the same way he monopolized radio.
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Thank you, Philo.
- By JPALJ on 03-29-20
By: Evan I. Schwartz
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How Chuck Feeney Made and Gave Away a Fortune
- The Billionaire Who Wasn't
- By: Conor O'Clery
- Narrated by: Erik Synnestvedt
- Length: 16 hrs
- Unabridged
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In 1988 Forbes magazine hailed Chuck Feeney as the 23rd richest American alive. No one knew until then that he was extremely wealthy. Or was he? Born during the Depression in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Feeney had made a fortune as co-founder of Duty Free Shoppers, the world's largest duty-free retail chain. How he did it is one of the great untold retail stories of modern times. The greater untold story is that Feeney had in fact given away his fortune, in its totality, to endow Atlantic Philanthropies - one of the most generous and secretive philanthropic funds in the world.
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Horizons I never knew were there!
- By DTU_Garza on 08-13-17
By: Conor O'Clery
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Picasso's War
- How Modern Art Came to America
- By: Hugh Eakin
- Narrated by: Mack Sanderson
- Length: 15 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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In January 1939, Pablo Picasso was renowned in Europe but disdained by many in the United States. One year later, Americans across the country were clamoring to see his art. How did the controversial leader of the Paris avant-garde break through to the heart of American culture? The answer begins a generation earlier, when a renegade Irish American lawyer named John Quinn set out to build the greatest collection of Picassos in existence. His dream of a museum to house them died with him, until it was rediscovered by Alfred H. Barr, Jr.
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Better Books on Picasso Available
- By john burke on 08-17-22
By: Hugh Eakin
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Tower of Lies
- What My Eighteen Years of Working with Donald Trump Reveals About Him
- By: Barbara A. Res
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
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Barbara A. Res worked directly with Donald Trump for 18 years on some of his biggest projects and had nearly unlimited access to him. Trump selected Res to be in charge of construction of Trump Tower, his greatest success as a developer. In this insider’s look at how the ambitious real estate developer became the most divisive president in recent US history, Res takes us into closed-door meetings, boardrooms, limo rides, and helicopter flights to really understand what makes him tick and show us why his claim to be a great dealmaker and savvy businessman is just a mirage.
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Extraordinary insight
- By Debbie Hupp on 10-27-20
By: Barbara A. Res
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Allen Klein
- The Man Who Bailed Out the Beatles, Made the Stones, and Transformed Rock & Roll
- By: Fred Goodman
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Allen Klein was like no one the music industry had seen before. The hard-nosed business manager became infamous for allegedly catalyzing the Beatles' breakup and robbing the Rolling Stones, but the truth is both more complex and more fascinating.
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The Beatles' & Rolling Stones' Big Bad Manager
- By tru britty on 07-05-15
By: Fred Goodman
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Warhol
- By: Blake Gopnik
- Narrated by: Graham Halstead
- Length: 43 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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To this day, mention the name “Andy Warhol” to almost anyone and you’ll hear about his famous images of soup cans and Marilyn Monroe. But though Pop Art became synonymous with Warhol’s name and dominated the public’s image of him, his life and work are infinitely more complex and multifaceted than that. In Warhol, esteemed art critic Blake Gopnik takes on Andy Warhol in all his depth and dimensions.
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Explaining an Enigma
- By Keith on 05-05-20
By: Blake Gopnik
What listeners say about The Isolation Artist
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- HaileyMCross
- 02-02-23
Informative but circular, boring
Overall it was an intensely boring listen, and the second half of the book seemed to be just repetition of the first half. It didn’t make me care about Robert Indiana, and I didn’t really care about anything else that happened. Elder abuse is terrible, but somehow this book made it seem blasé.
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