For the first time in 45 years, Indiana’s 20-foot high illuminated EAT sculpture will be on display at a museum in Rockland, Maine, through Oct. 25.

AP / Pat Wellenbach

VINALHAVEN, Maine — Robert Indiana never saw his oversized EAT sign illuminated after it went up at the New York World’s Fair in 1964. A day after being turned on, the sign with its hundreds of light bulbs was turned off because it was attracting hungry tourists who thought it was a restaurant, not a piece of art.

The EAT sign goes back on public display this month for the first time in 44 years as part of Indiana’s first major U.S. exhibition in a decade, at the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland. The sign is being installed atop the museum roof with lights flashing on five large metal discs with the letters E, A and T.

Having EAT rise again after all these years brings back memories of his mother, who at one time ran a diner and whose final dying word was “eat,” Indiana says.

“When the sign is finally turned on the roof of the Farnsworth and I see it for the first time, that will be one of my most exciting days in Maine and one of the most exciting days of my life,” he says from his studio on Vinalhaven, an island 15 miles off the Maine coast where he’s lived since 1978.

Indiana, 80, was part of the pop-art movement of the 1960s, known for his recurring use of numbers and words and bright flat colors that seem to jump off his works. He cringes at the term pop artist, preferring to call himself a “hard-edged artist.”

The “Robert Indiana and The Star of Hope” exhibition, which runs through Oct. 25, will feature about 80 of Indiana’s pieces. Nearly all the work comes from his Star of Hope studio, and many pieces have never been publicly displayed.

The EAT sign — five 300-pound discs, each 6 feet in diameter — is being showcased 50 feet above ground level on top of the museum, where it will flash, flicker and blink from morning until late at night. The original light bulbs have been replaced with modern light-emitting diode bulbs.

Inside the museum, Indiana’s works will fill 5 of the 12 galleries. They include his LOVE sculptures and prints, along with his new HOPE sculpture, which he created for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and premiered at last summer’s Democratic National Convention.

His “Eighth American Dream” oil on canvas — measuring more than 14 feet square — hangs in the museum lobby, where a new wall had to be built for it to be displayed. The museum gardens will have several outdoor sculptures, including his 12 foot-by-12 foot LOVE wall and his 8-foot-high Art sculpture.

LOVE, two letters to a line with the “O” tilted sideways, is Indiana’s best-known work, instantly recognizable worldwide. There are hundreds of his LOVE sculptures around the world, some of which have sold for as much as $3.5 million, he says.

Indiana has lived on Vinalhaven for 31 years, but you’d never guess it from his art. His work in Maine is a continuation of what he started in New York in the 1960s when he and such artists as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein were making names for themselves as pop artists.

He says his work is driven by his own life all the way back to his roots in Indiana, where he grew up as Robert Clark before changing his last name to his home state.

The EAT sign has been hidden away since the World’s Fair showing. For much of the time, it was kept in a shed behind Indiana’s house.

While Indiana’s art seems to be more New York than Maine, Farnsworth Art Museum curator Michael Komanecky said he expects big turnouts at the museum to see Indiana’s works. “Given our mission to celebrate Maine’s role in American art, an exhibition of Robert Indiana’s work is common sense.”