Lovers - Robert Lohman, C. 1969

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Lovers
Robert Lohman, c. 1969

In Lovers, Robert Lohman divides the sheet into two distinct but connected worlds. The lower … Read more Lovers
Robert Lohman, c. 1969

In Lovers, Robert Lohman divides the sheet into two distinct but connected worlds. The lower section contains the recognizable human subject: two figures pressed together within an oval enclosure. Above them, the composition opens into broad, floating areas of green, blue, and violet that are far more abstract. The tension between these two zones is one of man and one of nature.

The lovers themselves are small in relation to the overall page. Lohman could easily have enlarged them and made the embrace the dominant visual event, but instead he gives them an intimate scale. They feel private, almost hidden within the larger field. The viewer must move closer and look carefully before the two bodies become clear.

One figure appears to lean over the other, their faces meeting near the upper center of the oval. The bodies below are folded tightly together, with limbs crossing and disappearing into shared contours. Lohman does not carefully assign every arm and leg to one person. That uncertainty feels intentional. In an embrace, the physical boundaries between two bodies become harder to follow, and he allows the drawing to carry that experience.

The central oval is one of the work’s most important elements. It frames the couple like a miniature portrait or devotional image, but it also carries more bodily associations. It may resemble a womb, egg, seed, or cell as something that is designed to contain, protect, and allow life to develop. The lovers therefore appear not only physically close but sheltered within a separate environment of their own making.

The green surrounding the figures strengthens that sense of protection. It is soft and translucent rather than dense, allowing the bodies to remain visible through it. Lohman avoids using a heavy border that would make the oval feel rigid. Instead, the enclosure feels permeable, as though intimacy creates privacy without entirely cutting the couple off from the outside world.

Around the oval, orange lines curl upward and outward in repeated waves and spirals. These are the roots of the abstract tree builds its foundation on and what surrounds the lovers. The warmth from the roots contrasts with the cooler blue above, giving the lower section a more bodily and immediate feeling.

Small blue and violet lines move among the orange forms. This prevents the surrounding field from becoming straightforwardly fiery or decorative. The different colors overlap like emotional currents—desire, comfort, vulnerability, and uncertainty occupying the same space.

Several orange vertical lines rise directly above the lovers, creating a narrow bridge toward the upper half of the composition. They are the striations of the trunk. Visually, they connect the intimate physical scene below with the larger abstract forms above.

This connection suggests that the embrace has significance beyond the two bodies. Their intimacy may generate the expansive tree forms overhead and may contribute to the larger emotional world in which the relationship exists. Lohman does not explain whether energy is rising from the lovers or descending toward them, and that ambiguity keeps the image open.

The upper section is dominated by large pale-green shapes surrounded by blue. These forms are soft, rounded, and organic. They make up the leaves and fullness of foliage in the tree. The form at the upper left bends and narrows as though two shapes have joined together. The upper blue field gives the composition a sense of depth and distance. Its irregular edges gather around the green forms as sky. Lohman leaves areas of the paper visible, allowing the color to breathe rather than turning it into a closed background.

The broad watercolor-like passages contrast with the fine, searching lines used to describe the lovers. The figures require attention and close looking, while the upper forms can be absorbed immediately as large areas of color. This difference in handling mirrors the difference between personal experience and emotional atmosphere: the embrace is specific, while the feeling it produces is expansive and difficult to define. This is in line with Lohman's focus on the human form.

The composition is unusually vertical for such an intimate subject. Instead of arranging the lovers horizontally in a bed or reclining pose, Lohman places them near the bottom and allows the work to rise above them. This vertical structure gives the embrace an almost aspirational quality. The figures are grounded in the body, but the image extends into something dreamlike and less tangible.

The date, 1969, places Lovers alongside a period in which Lohman was exploring more dramatic abstraction and color. His Electrism, also from 1969, turns the page into a sharp explosion of competing planes and nervous energy. Lovers uses abstraction in a very different way. The color does not break the figure apart; it gathers around and protects it.

That contrast helps reveal the flexibility of Lohman’s visual language. Angular fragmentation could describe speed and overstimulation, while soft organic forms could communicate intimacy. He did not treat abstraction as a single style applied to every subject. He changed its emotional function depending on what he wanted the viewer to feel.

The couple also relates to Lohman’s recurring interest in lovers and paired figures throughout his catalog. He often used the human relationship as an opportunity to challenge the boundaries of anatomy. Bodies overlap, merge, and become difficult to separate, but they usually retain enough individuality to preserve the emotional importance of connection. The lovers do not completely dissolve into one anonymous body. Two heads remain visible, and the differing direction of their torsos suggests two distinct physical presences. Their closeness does not erase identity; it creates a shared form around it.

There is also a quiet sense of vulnerability in the image. The lovers are exposed through nudity and small scale, yet the oval and surrounding movement make them feel safe. Lohman presents intimacy as both surrender and shelter to nature. To embrace another person is to become vulnerable, but it can also create a space in which that vulnerability is protected.

The work avoids sentimental facial expressions or familiar romantic symbols. There are no flowers, beds, hearts, or narrative details. Instead, Lohman trusts the physical arrangement of the bodies to carry the subject. The title tells us they are lovers, but the composition shows what that means emotionally: enclosure, shared weight, warmth, and the temporary removal of the outside world.

The loose quality of the medium gives the work tenderness. Color bleeds gently at the edges, lines remain imperfect, and the figures feel discovered rather than rigidly designed. This softness prevents the image from becoming overly symbolic or clinical.

Lovers presents intimacy as its own environment. The couple is not simply placed within a landscape; their closeness appears to generate one. Lohman allows the embrace to expand upward into color, atmosphere, and organic form, suggesting that love can begin with two bodies while creating a space far larger than either one alone.

-Jonathan Flike

About the Artist
Robert Lohman was an American artist associated with Indiana modernism, recognized as both a sculptor and painter. The National Gallery of Art identifies Lohman as an American artist, 1919–2001, and holds examples of his 1966 bronze medallic work created with the Medallic Art Company in its collection.

Lohman worked across a wide range of media, including watercolor, oil, wood, plaster, ceramics, and bronze. Biographical sources identify him as a portrait and figure sculptor as well as a painter, with formal study at the John Herron Art Institute, Cranbrook, and Yale. He assisted the noted sculptor Carl Milles at Cranbrook Academy and later served as Director of Fine Arts at Cranbrook from 1947 to 1949. Lohman also taught at Washington University in St. Louis and the Indianapolis Art League, where he remained connected to art education and regional modernist practice.

His work often moves between figuration and abstraction, reflecting the eye of a sculptor and the freedom of a modernist draftsman.

Underrepresented Artist Information
Robert Lohman may also be understood within the broader history of underrepresented LGBT artists in the American Midwest. Documentary records connect him closely with Jerrol T. Davis of Indianapolis, who served as Secretary-Treasurer of Robert Lohman, Inc.; Davis’s obituary confirms his role in Lohman’s company, and later memorial sources identify him as Lohman’s spouse. While historical records from this period often leave same-sex relationships only partially documented, the available evidence points to a significant personal and professional partnership that adds important context to Lohman’s life and legacy. See less