photograph fromThe MOMENT NY Times magazine-
StieiglitzAT the time of her first 1929 visit- She was a New Yorker, was already established as an artist, was married to a major photographer, was beautiful. Yes, looking at O'Keeffe- she appears today- the photographs of her are totally modern- a page from one of Ralph Lauren's dreamy lifestyle advertisements.
Stieglitz
"I wish I had kept a diary,
I think I know now that my life is never going to look right."
I think I know now that my life is never going to look right."
Ghost Ranch
ALONG with purchasing Ghost Ranch in 1940, she rented it until then, O'Keeffe purchased another house in 1945 and its restoration was completed in 1949. She lived there and at Ghost Ranch as well. The Abiquiu house was a 5,000-square-foot Spanish Colonial 18ty century compound in Abiquiu and was in ruins. Male villagers of Abiquiu made the adobe brick and the woman of the village-the most skilled in plastering- worked the earth's mud into refined thin walls. Here- her staff took care of the house and property- while she painted. A studio was built beyond the house and a vegetable garden was planted.
HER INTERIORS at ABIQUIU:
Tables of plain pieces of wood on stands, bare bulbs, sticks, Muslin cloth bed covers, white sheeting,an elk horn rack, horns, skulls, large rocks, river rocks & pebbles, Japanese lanterns, & an Alexander Calder mobile, Plywood tabletops, Bancos-rounded adobe ledges at the base of the adobe walls-for sitting.
Chestnut Tree
O'Keeffe
"I said to myself, I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me - shapes and ideas so near to me - so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn't occurred to me to put them down. I decided to start anew, to strip away what I had been taught."
photograph by Stieglitz,1918
Things you might not know about Georgia O'Keeffe:
William Merritt Chase was her mentor.
Her aesthetic included Chinese and Japanese Art and her work- upon examination- reflects that.
One of her favorite books was The Book of Tea, 1906 Okakura Kakuzo. "The similarities between her own life and the Japanese tea ceremony were obvious- her constant manner, her humility, her exactness, her utterly respectful exactness." ( Christine Taylor Patten from the O'Keeffe At Abiquiu book)
"In 1906 in turn-of-the century Boston, a small, esoteric book about tea was written with the intention of being read aloud in the famous salon of Isabella Gardner. It was authored by Okakura Kakuzo, a Japanese philosopher, art expert, and curator. Little known at the time, Kakuzo would emerge as one of the great thinkers of the early 20th century, a genius who was insightful, witty-and greatly responsible for bridging Western and Eastern cultures. Nearly a century later, Kakuzo's the Book of Tea is still beloved the world over. Interwoven with a rich history of tea and its place in Japanese society is poignant commentary on Eastern culture and our ongoing fascination with it, as well as illuminating essays on art, spirituality, poetry, and more. the Book of Tea is a delightful cup of enlightenment from a man far ahead of his time" (text from here)
" Turn to the pages about flowers. He understands about flowers. You know, he says that a butterfly is a flower with wings. Don't you think that is a fine idea?" G. O'Keeffe
"Nobody sees a flower - really - it is so small it takes time - we haven't time - and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time. " Georgia O'Keeffe
Georgia O'Keeffe has a place at the table of artist Judy Chicag's Dinner Party .The O'Keeffe setting is the last at the Chicago table. Chicago acknowledged the influence O'Keefe on future feminist artists, pronouncing her work as "pivotal in the development of an authentically female iconography" (Judy Chicago)
more on O'Keeffe:
Lifetime Movie Sept 19, Saturday Georgia O'Keeffe, Joan Allen, Jeremy Irons
little augury
the O'Keeffe Museum
Her Houses
at the Whitney Georgia O'Keefffe Abstraction Sept 17 ,2009- Jan 17,2010
from Art In the Picture
from the blog Sexuality in Art: O'Keeffe and Ansel Adams
interior images from O'Keeffe At Abiquiu, text by Christine Taylor Patten, photographs by Myron Wood
