O'Keeffe , livre ebook

Author: Gerry Souter
Text: Janet Souter

Layout: Baseline Co Ltd
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© Confidential Concepts, worldwide, USA
© Parkstone Press International, New York, USA
© The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Artists Rights
Society (ARS), New York

All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced or adapted without the permission of the copyright holder, throughout the world. Unless otherwise specified, copyright on the works reproduced lies with the respective photographers. Despite intensive research, it has not always been possible to establish copyright ownership. Where this is the case, we would appreciate notification.

ISBN: 978-1-78160- 616-2
Gerry Souter




Georgia
O’Keeffe
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


1. Portrait of Georgia O’Keeffe.
2. Blue Lines, N o 10, 1916.
3. Special N o 32, 1914.
4. Abstraction, 1916, 1979-1980.
5. Abstraction IX, 1916.
6. Nude Series XII, 1917.
7. Evening, 1916.
8. Evening Star III, 1917.
9. Orange and Red Streak, 1919.
10. Apple Family II, 1920.
11. Light Coming on the Plains II, 1917.
12. From the Plains, 1919.
13. Music, Pink and Blue II, 1919.
14. From the Lake N o 1, 1924.
15. Light Iris, 1924.
16. Black Iris III, 1926.
17. Black and Purple Petunias, 1925.
18. The Shelton with Sunspots, 1926.
19. City Night, 1926.
20. New York, Night, 1928-1929.
21. Radiator Building, Night, New York, 1927.
22. Black Abstraction, 1927.
23. Red Hills and the Sun, Lake George, 1927.
24. Oriental Poppies, 1928.
25. Two Calla Lilies on Pink, 1928.
26. Wave, Night, 1928.
27. Ranchos Church, 1929.
28. Bell, Cross, Ranchos Church, New Mexico, 1930.
29. Cross with Red Heart, 1932.
30. Cross, 1929.
31. Lake George Window, 1929.
32. Jack-in-the-Pulpit IV, 1930.
33. Jack-in-the-Pulpit III, 1930.
34. Black Mesa Landscape, New Mexico / Outback of Marie’s II, 1930.
35. Purple Hills near Abiquiu, 1935.
36. Cow’s Skull: Red, White and Blue, 1931.
37. Summer Days, 1936.
38. From the Faraway Nearby, 1937.
39. Gerald’s Tree I, 1937.
40. Mule’s Skull with Pink Poinsettias, 1936.
41. Two Jimson Weeds, 1938.
42. White Camellia, 1938.
43. Stump in Red Hills, 1940.
44. Grey Hills, 1942.
45. Cliffs beyond Abiquiu, Dry Waterfall, 1943.
46. Pelvis with Pedernal, 1943.
47. A Black Bird with Snow-Covered Red Hills, 1946.
48. Pelvis III, 1944.
49. Black Place IV, 1944.
50. Black Place Green, 1949.
51. In the Patio I, 1946.
52. My Last Door, 1954.
53. Patio with Black Door, 1955.
54. Lavender Hill with Green, 1952.
55. From the Plains II, 1954.
56. Only One, 1959.
57. Blue, Black and Grey, 1960.
58. Blue B, 1959.
59. It Was Red and Pink, 1959.
60. Sky above Clouds I, 1963.
61. Sky above Clouds III, 1963.
62. Road to the Ranch, 1964.
63. Black Rock with Red, 1971.
64. Georgia O’Keeffe at the Age of Ninety at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, 1977.
65. Abstraction, 1945, 1979-1980.
1. Portrait of Georgia O’Keeffe.
2 . Blue Lines, N o 10, 1916.
Watercolor, 63.5 x 48.3 cm.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York, NY.


Georgia O’Keeffe, in her ability to see and marvel at the tiniest detail of a flower or the vastness of the southwestern landscape, drew us in as well. The more she cultivated her isolation, the more she attracted the rest of the world. What is it that makes her legacy so powerful, even today? People recognize flowers, bones, buildings. But something in her paintings also shows us how to see. We stroll on the beach or hike a footpath and barely notice a delicate seashell or the subtle shades of a pebble; we kick aside a worn shingle. Driving through the desert we shade our eyes from the sun, blink, and miss the lone skull, signifying a life long since gone. Georgia embraced all these things and more, brought them into focus and forced us to make their acquaintance. Then she placed them in a context that stimulated our imagination. The remains of an elk’s skull hovering over the desert’s horizon, or the moon looking down on the hard line of a New York skyscraper briefly guide us into another world.
In her own life she showed women that it was possible to search out and find the best in themselves; easier today, not so easy when Georgia was young. Her later years serve as a role model for those of us who feel life is a downhill slide after the age of sixty. Well into her nineties, her eyesight failing, she still found ways to express what she saw and how it excited her.
To this day, her work is as bright, fresh and moving as it was nearly 100 years ago. Why? Because the paintings, although simple in their execution, hold a feeling of order, of being well thought out, a steadiness, yet also serve as a vehicle to help all of us see and examine the sensual delicacy of a flower, the starkness of a bleached skull and the e lectricity of a Western sunset.
Georgia Totto O’Keeffe was born on November 15, 1887 on a farm near the village of Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, the first daughter and second child of Francis and Ida Totto O’Keeffe. Georgia’s childhood was singularly uneventful. She spent her early and middle years in the large family home near Sun Prairie, an area of rolling hills and farmland.
In the evenings and on rainy days, her mother Ida O’Keeffe, believing in the importance of education, read to her children from books such as James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales or stories of the west. Ida had spent much of her childhood on a farm next to the O’Keeffe property. When her father, George, left the family to return to his native Hungary, Ida’s mother Isabel moved the children to Madison, Wisconsin where her children might have the oppo rtunity for a formal education.
3. Special N o 32, 1914.
Pastel on paper, 35.5 x 49.5 cm. Private collection.