Georgia O'Keeffe 1887-1986

In 1923, the renowned photographer and gallery owner Alfred Stieglitz presented an exhibition of One Hundred Works by Georgia O’Keeffe, American.  Rather than traveling to Europe like most of her fellow artists, O’Keeffe found inspiration in the landscape and architecture of Texas, New York and New Mexico.  Her distinct visual language was immediately recognized by another member of Steiglitz’s circle, the photographer Paul Strand.  O’Keeffe and Strand shared an intense and often times reciprocal relationship, each striving to capture the essential character of a place or object on paper and canvas.  During a trip to Texas in 1917 O’Keeffe wrote to Strand, “I believe I’ve been looking at things and seeing them as I thought you might photograph them.”  Strand, after O’Keeffe’s 1923 exhibition wrote, “here in America this amazing thing has happened.”

O’Keeffe approached her subjects with an innovative use of form and color, painting flowers, fruit, trees, and mountains with unique freedom.  Of her place within the tradition of still-life painting O’Keeffe write: “I was an outsider.  My color and form were not acceptable.  It had nothing to do with Cezanne or anyone else” (Georgia O’Keeffe, 1976, New York).

O’Keeffe’s interest in the rhythm and forms of nature is evident in her reworking themes over a period of months and even years.  Rather than progressing in a typically linear fashion from one style to another, she often altered between and worked simultaneously with realistic observation and abstraction.