The Artist’s Caretaker: Once He Controlled Everything. No More.

When Robert Indiana died, the man who had directed his affairs was supposed to help run the artist’s foundation and its new museum. Those plans have changed.

Following Mr. Indiana’s passing, there was an event at the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland, Maine, that was somewhat of a memorial. However, the artist’s caretaker, Jamie L. Thomas, was conspicuously absent from the event. Mr. Indiana had picked Thomas to help guide his artistic legacy. 

In fact, in recent months, the man who came to control most aspects of Mr. Indiana’s life — his meals, his home, his email account, even what new works of art were marketed under the artist’s name — has largely disappeared from his affairs. According to the event’s director, Mr. Thomas was not invited to the event because he had no connection to the Farnsworth. 

Further, Mr. Thomas will no longer direct the new museum that Mr. Indiana wanted created and is also no longer on the board of the Star of Hope Foundation, the new nonprofit that Mr. Indiana established to operate the museum. 

It is a remarkable turn of events for a man whose roles as museum leader and keeper of the Indiana legacy were designated in the artist’s will.

See Graham Bowley, The Artist’s Caretaker: Once He Controlled Everything. No More., N.Y. Times, June 14, 2020. 

Special thanks to Joel C. Dobris (Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law) for bringing this article to my attention.