DISCLAIMER: I have had many art adventures since my last blog post (including an amazing art excursion to Paris) and it occurs to me WHY my posts are infrequent: TIME. I love the museums and artists that I blog about so much that I often end up doing a deep dive on the subject and fall down an endless rabbit hole. This seems to leave little time to write. The below post started simply enough, but 2 months, 4 books, 3 podcasts and endless web searches later I find myself without an O’Keeffe post.
On an icy afternoon at the end of December, my family and I went to the PEM to see Georgia O’Keeffe: Art, Image, Style (on view December 16, 2017 to April 1, 2018.) As a lover of art and fashion, it did not disappoint.
Georgia O’Keeffe: Art, Image, Style is a unique exhibit that explores the art, image and personal style of one of America’s most iconic artists. O’Keeffe’s unique garments are presented alongside her paintings. For more than 70 years, O’Keeffe shaped her public persona, defied labels and carved out a truly progressive, independent life in order to create her art.
This is the third stop of the traveling exhibit originating from Brooklyn Museum of Art entitled – Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern (MARCH 3–JULY 23, 2017.) The exhibit was organized by guest curator Wanda M. Corn, Robert and Ruth Halperin Professor Emerita in Art History, Stanford University, and coordinated by Lisa Small, Curator of European Painting and Sculpture, Brooklyn Museum.
Georgia is frequently described as: a feisty maverick, and an uncompromising woman. I loved that this exhibit highlights another side of this incredible artist: fashionista. The clothing is simple and functional – yet incredibly well-crafted – very much like her paintings.
When you step into the exhibit you are greeted by this:
You can easily see how the lines of her clothing and the symmetry of the landscape influenced her work.
There were many photographs of Georgia, my personal favorites taken by her lover and eventual husband artist Alfred Steiglitz are included in the exhibit. You can feel the love and yearning that Alfred had for his beloved when you view them.
Georgia O’Keeffe was the most photographed American artist of the 20th century. The exhibition presents photographs of O’Keeffe by Ansel Adams, Annie Leibovitz, Philippe Halsman, Yousuf Karsh, Cecil Beaton, Andy Warhol, Bruce Weber, Todd Webb, and others.
I fell in love with the watercolors that were part of the exhibit – I had never seen them before this exhibit. They were very different than her oils – the simplicity of form and fluidity of lines were exquisite.
Don’t miss the ephemera in the exhibit, every piece offers some insight into the artist’s life. For example, Georgia O’Keeffe’s classmates at the Chatham Episcopal Institute, an all-girls boarding school in Virginia, described the young artist in their 1905 high school yearbook as:
It is hard not to admire such a person so unique and established at such a tender age.
Then there were her shoes. Functional, certainly – but still as unique as her work.
These were placed next to one of her paintings that showed similar leaf patterns. It must be said that the curation of this show was exceptional. I highly recommend adding it to your “must see” list.
I love the PEM – they have been hitting it out of the park again and again with their exhibits, so my family became members after seeing Georgia O’Keeffe: Art, Image, Style.
We need to support cultural excellence in our community.
Check out the PEM O’Keeffe social media buzz by searching: #PEMokeeffe
The letters of Alfred + Georgia
The letters are passionate and poetic. He was 52 – she was 28. From 1915 until 1946, some 25,000 pieces of paper were exchanged between two. Fun fact: O’Keeffe was an atrocious speller.
Alfred Stieglitz attached this photograph to a letter for Georgia O’Keeffe, dated July 10, 1929. Below the photograph he wrote, “I have destroyed 300 prints today. And much more literature. I haven’t the heart to destroy this…”
Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
(https://www.npr.org/2011/07/21/138467808/stieglitz-and-okeeffe-their-love-and-life-in-letters)
For more letters, check out: Sarah Greenough’s My Faraway One: Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz, Volume One, 1915-1933.
I discovered Sarah Greenough during my deep O’Keeffe dive when I ran across this great gallery talk from the Art Gallery of Ontario.
While at the PEM Museum Store, I spied Georgia by Dawn Tripp. I had a trip to Martinique coming up and I felt this might fit the bill as a beach read. I enjoyed it – though before my dive into their letters (noted above) – I found it a bit on the tawdry side. After reading some of the letters, I realize it was not as over the top as I had imagined. Alfred and Georgia were very passionate people and that passion is what fueled their relationship.
If you still want more O’Keeffe, come to my seminar:
To learn more about Georgia O’Keeffe I invite you to consider taking my Artist Seminar at Middlesex Community College:
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restless art syndrome 