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Georgia O’Keeffe Click here to read more about Georgia O'Keeffe
A Sense of Place
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Cedar Tree with Lavender Hills,
Oil on Canvas, 1937.
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Photo by Malcolm Varon 1937.
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The Albright-Knox Art Gallery’s already dynamic 2005 exhibition schedule has received an unexpected and welcome addition—an exhibition of paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe, one of the most popular and successful American artists of the 20th century.
Organized by the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, Georgia O’Keeffe and New Mexico: A Sense of Place is the first exhibition to highlight the artist’s celebrated paintings of New Mexico’s starkly beautiful landscapes and architectural forms. The exhibit which opened at the end of January and runs through May 8, represents the first time the Albright-Knox has presented a solo show of works by O’Keeffe.
O’Keeffe (1887-1986) is known for her use of brilliant colors, abstract paintings, large-scale flowers, and Southwest subjects—including the landscapes in this exhibition.
O’Keeffe’s life story including her somewhat unconventional relationship and marriage to internationally known photographer and art impresario Alfred Stieglitz, 23 years her senior—has been well documented. Her success as an artist and the independence and personal magnetism she demonstrated throughout her life have made her a modern feminist icon.
The Albright-Knox agreed to be the final venue for the exhibition when another museum had to withdraw, said Albright-Knox Director Louis Grachos. The exhibition premiered at the O’Keeffe museum last summer and completes a run at the Columbus Museum of Art in mid-January.
“Georgia O’Keeffe is one of the great American artists, and these gorgeous paintings of the stunning New Mexico landscape will be a wonderful experience for visitors to the Albright-Knox,” Grachos said. “We are certainly pleased to be able to present this exhibition as part of a very full, diverse, and exciting 2005 schedule.”
The Albright-Knox’s permanent collection includes two works by O’Keeffe, an early abstract oil painting, Black Spot No. 3 (1919) and a later painting of her adobe house in Abiquiu, New Mexico, Green Patio Door (1955) one of her sparest abstractions. The Gallery also has a photograph of O’Keeffe taken at her New Mexico home in 1948. In addition, the Albright-Knox’s collection includes stellar works by many of O’Keeffe’s contemporaries, including Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, John Marin, Max Weber, and O’Keeffe’s husband, Stieglitz.
Born in rural Wisconsin and schooled in art in Chicago and New York, Georgia O’Keeffe was instantly drawn to New Mexico’s unusual and starkly beautiful landscape from the moment she first saw it in 1917. In an interview many years later she recalled: “From then on, I was always trying to get back there and in 1929 I finally made it.”
Because this unique exhibition includes paintings that have long been in private collections and combines them with photographs of the actual locations, it provides an opportunity to view works by O’Keeffe that have never been available to the public in such an interesting format.
The exhibition documents O’Keeffe’s extraordinary ability to capture the contours, colors, and textures of the land that fascinated her while remaining true to her life-long interest in and commitment to exploring issues of abstraction. In addition to displaying approximately 40 paintings that O’Keeffe depicted from 1929 to the early 1950s, the exhibition presents color photographs of 21 actual sites. Though O’Keeffe’s paintings of New Mexico landscapes have often been mistaken for imagined images, they are closely based on actual landforms.
Click here to read more about Georgia O'Keeffe
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