O'Keeffe: The Life of an American Legend - Hardcover

Hogrefe, Jeffrey

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0553081160 ISBN 13: 9780553081169

Publisher: Bantam, 1992

Synopsis

A biography of the controversial painter chronicles her emergence in the art world in the 1920s, her fame in the 1930s, her sexually charged flower paintings, her relationships with Alfred Stieglitz and with a much younger man, and more

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews:

Following Roxana Robinson's Georgia O'Keeffe (1989) and Benita Eisler's O'Keeffe and Stieglitz (1991) comes another lengthy biography of America's most persistently scrutinized woman artist. What Hogrefe (Wholly Unacceptable, 1986) has to add to the O'Keeffe file is his access to Juan Hamilton, the artist's controversial, decades-younger, opportunistic companion who inherited a fortune after fighting with O'Keeffe's relatives over her estate. While insisting that ``this is not...Hamilton's book,'' Hogrefe starts with Hamilton, who ``arrived in New Mexico's high desert'' with a ``premonition'' that the elderly O'Keeffe, by then ``successful beyond the dreams of most women and men,'' needed him. At this point, the author, who later rips into O'Keeffe's carefully constructed persona, seems to be weaving more myth. (Is this perhaps because Hogrefe met O'Keeffe at a party in New Jersey in the early 80's and was dazzled by her ``obvious and occult'' smile?) Hogrefe's report on O'Keeffe's final years amounts to accumulated detail rather than enlightenment: You won't find out if or how Hamilton influenced the blind artist to change her will. In covering the rest of the now-familiar O'Keeffe story--from Wisconsin (born in 1887) to teaching in Texas to her notorious alliance with Alfred Stieglitz and her move to the Southwest- -Hogrefe hypes certain aspects of the artist's sometimes troubled inner self beyond what the evidence suggests: ``Rumbling beneath the surface are the weightier issues of repressed homosexuality, incest-induced rage, madness, coercion and deceit.'' For a more balanced and convincing O'Keeffe portrait, go to Robinson; for a microscopic look at the artist's relationship with Stieglitz, see Eisler; and for a sense of O'Keeffe's explosive creativity, read her letters to Anita Pollitzer (Lovingly, Georgia, 1990). (Sixteen pages of photographs--not seen.) -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly:

How did a gaunt, fearful schoolteacher from the Texas Panhandle become the best-known American woman artist of the century? This engrossing biography of Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) sweeps away myths and legends. An icon of self-reliance whose life in the New Mexico desert has inspired feminists, the acerbic and imperious O'Keeffe, in Hogrefe's candid portrait, tended to dominate other women and looked up to certain men as superior beings. Her husband, New York photographer and art impresario Alfred Stieglitz, 23 years her senior, was a parental figure, "the foundation against which she would rebel." Hogrefe, a former Washington Post arts columnist, attributes O'Keeffe's frequent rages to suppressed memories of childhood incest. Following a series of nervous breakdowns, O'Keeffe came to accept her bisexuality. "The victim became the victimizer," subjugating a series of women who worshiped her like a goddess, in Hogrefe's account. Drawing on interviews, he sympathetically limns Juan Hamilton, the volatile young artist who cared for the elderly O'Keeffe, and whom many critics portray as a villain preying on an old lady. O'Keeffe's artistic achievements seem all the more remarkable in light of this searchingly critical yet affectionate biography, a remarkable piece of detective work. Photos.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bantam
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0553081160
• ISBN 13: 9780553081169
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 376