As an art student in New York, Georgia O’Keeffe realized that any distraction, like dancing late into the night, would impinge upon her prime directive: to paint. For her, anger was just another distraction.
Georgia O’Keeffe in comic form
By Ann Daly
My (seemingly endless) research on Georgia O’Keeffe leads me down a lot of unexpected paths, none more enchanting than the comic strip I recently discovered. Lest we assume that O’Keeffe appeals mostly to women, and mostly older women, consider the case of Todd Webb, a cartoonist/illustrator and songwriter who has taken his inspiration from the […]
Georgia O’Keeffe: never a catholic, maybe a buddhist
By Ann Daly
“I feel I’m a very religious person — religion to me means respect for people — but I’m not in a religion.”
Holiday greetings from Georgia O’Keeffe
By Ann Daly
“Starlight Night” (1917) featured on Georgia O’Keeffe’s Christmas card in 1963. Georgia O’Keeffe was not religious in the institutional sense, but she was deeply spiritual and certainly enjoyed a good ritual. She usually celebrated Christmas with friends, and sent Christmas cards, including one in 1963 that reproduced her 1917 masterpiece, “Starlight Night” (above). In the […]
Georgia O’Keeffe: Look for yourself
By Ann Daly
“White Flower,” 1932. Abby Aldrich Rockefeller gave this Georgia O’Keeffe painting to the College of William & Mary to mark the artist’s honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts. (Copyright Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, ARS) (Muscarelle Museum of Art) That Kate Alfriend must have been one heck of a charmer. In 1938, Georgia O’Keeffe made no speech when […]
Georgia O’Keeffe as photographer
By Ann Daly
O’Keeffe using her new Leica, 1966. ©2017 Todd Webb Archive From the Todd Webb Archive: “Todd met Georgia O’Keeffe in 1943 at Alfred Stieglitz’s gallery, An American Place. He had dropped off some prints there the previous day and returned to find them propped up on Georgia’s desk with her studying them intently. Their friendship […]
Georgia, Julia, and the Token Woman
By Ann Daly
There is no denying that O’Keeffe was an extraordinarily ambitious professional. But it does not necessarily follow that the dearth of other successful women artists was the result of her competitiveness.
Georgia O’Keeffe: houseplant advice
By Ann Daly
Alongside the very elegant rocks at O’Keeffe’s Abiquiu home, she cared for a collection of container plants, including geraniums and a huge jade plant that she had nurtured from a six-inch pot, providing her with “something green.” In case you have insects on your houseplants, O’Keeffe advised: “Puff cigarette smoke on them.”
Georgia O’Keeffe: what I meant, what you saw
By Ann Daly
The young Georgia O’Keeffe, working relentlessly to find her voice as an artist, was ambivalent about viewer reception. She longed for people to understand her art, but she resisted that desire at the same time. Modern art was for art’s sake, and the meaning was hers to know and not necessarily for her viewer to […]
Georgia O’Keeffe: feminist forever
By Ann Daly
Right from the get-go, Georgia O’Keeffe resisted patriarchy. “I have always resented being told that there are things I cannot do because I am a woman,” she told a National Woman’s Party audience in 1926. “I remember how I used to argue with my brother about which were best, boys or girls. When I argued […]
Homage to O’Keeffe
By Ann Daly
I have been meaning to share this video for a while… It’s by a young photographer, Petra Collins, created to celebrate the opening of the Tate Modern’s O’Keeffe retrospective last year. Interestingly, I think Collins nails O’Keeffe’s aesthetic in an interview with Vogue: “I was so drawn to her work, the shapes and lines, how […]
Happy Birthday, Georgia!
By Ann Daly
One of my favorite photographs of O’Keeffe, so majestic and rooted, like a tree. (She claimed to prefer trees to people.)
Georgia O’Keeffe, like a cat
By Ann Daly
As a journalist and historian, I bring a perhaps too-healthy skepticism to documentaries and memoirs about O’Keeffe. They suffer, most of them, from nostalgia, or romanticism, or psychological projection. This one manages to be different. Christine Taylor Patten, interviewed by the BBC for a documentary marking the O’Keeffe retrospective at the Tate Modern last year, […]
Before it was “O’Keeffe Country”
By Ann Daly
As a historian, I am always on the lookout for contemporary documentation, in order to understand what/how things meant in their own day. Somehow I stumbled upon this film about New Mexico by Carl Dudley, an American director and producer well-known for his short travelogues. It was copyrighted in 1947, at the same time that […]
Making modernism
By Ann Daly
Three women, two continents. Artists who dwell in modernism — abandoning sentiment for the acute eye. That eye turns toward the landscape, and claims a place in the world. “O’Keeffe, Preston, Cossington Smith: Making Modernism.” The Art Gallery of New South Wales. Through October 2, 2017.