In the early 1960s, Americans revolutionized the art world.

They replaced abstract art with a new style, which art critics soon called Pop Art — for popular art. Splashy colors and wild abstract forms were out and theme and motif returned. But not in traditional forms, such as landscapes, still lifes or portraits. These new works were different.

Young American artists were inspired by modern life in the fast-moving United States. They were affected by everyday life — objects, advertising, comics and signs. Their works incorporated different aspects of American life and the American dream, symbolized by cars, the highway, hamburgers, Coke and the juke box.

Andy Warhol painted Campbell’s soup cans. Roy Lichtenstein turned comics into big paintings. Jasper Johns put the Stars and Stripes on canvas. And Robert Indiana idolized American signs.

Influenced by letters and numbers on stencils, carplates and highway signs, pinball machines and gas meters, Indiana created his own artistic world of bold, hard-edged color paintings. He simplified and composed classic letter forms and numbers and made them a frequently repeated motif. He painted them in basic colors, color for color’s sake.

Some of his best works make up an exhibit at the Museum Wiesbaden through May 18.

According to the exhibit catalogue, the artist was born as Robert Clark in New Castle, Ind., but later adopted the name of his home state. In 1928, Indiana called himself “the American painter of signs.” After studying art in Chicago, Maine and Edinburgh, Scotland, he moved to New York in 1954, where he met Warhol, Lichtenstein and James Rosenquist, all now considered Pop Art classics.

According to the catalog, Indiana was one of the original leading figures of Pop Art, and his first solo exhibition toured Europe in 1966. Two years later he was honored with a display of more than 20 works at the Documenta at Kassel, the most important show of contemporary art in Germany.

Ironically, Volker Rattemeyer, now the director of the Wiesbaden museum, was then a young student who helped hang paintings at Documenta. He was impressed with several Pop Art works, especially those by Indiana with his bold, colorful images. Forty years later as the museum director, Rattemeyer grabbed the chance to honor Indiana, now 80, with a special exhibit, titled “Robert Indiana, Painter of Signs.”

At the center of the exhibition are Indiana’s well-known numbers, the cardinal numbers zero through nine, painted in a variety of solid colors. They are shown as paintings, prints and as big sculptures of painted aluminum, 8 feet high, seen for the first time in Europe.

Another highlight of the Wiesbaden exhibition is Indiana’s most famous creation: “Love.” Drawn in 1966, the four letters were originally arranged in a square and painted in the basic colors of red, blue and green. The work became an icon of the spirit of the ’60s. Copied, cited and transformed in many styles and forms in the past 40 years, it is probably the best-known logo worldwide after Coca-Cola. It even has traveled around the world as an 8-cent U.S. postage stamp released in 1973. “Everybody,” Indiana complained once, “everyone knows my ‘Love.’ But they don’t have the slightest idea what I look like.”

The exhibition in Wiesbaden could change that. And even if visitors don’t come to know his face, at least they will become familiar with more of his work.

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