Georgia O'Keeffe A Book of Postcards: Abstraction - Hardcover

Georgia O'Keeffe

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0764951971 ISBN 13: 9780764951978

Publisher: Pomegranate, 2003

Synopsis

Although Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) has long been regarded as a central figure in 20th-century art, the abstract works she created throughout her career have remained critically and popularly overlooked in favor of her representational subjects. Beginning with charcoal drawings made in 1915, which were among the most radical creations produced in the United States at that time, O'Keeffe sought to transcribe pure emotion in her work. While her output of abstract work declined after 1930, she returned to abstraction in the 1950s with a new vocabulary that provided a precedent for a younger generation of abstractionists. By devoting itself to this largely unexplored area of her work, "Georgia O'Keeffe: Abstraction" is an overdue acknowledgment of her place as one of America's first abstractionists.In addition to rethinking O'Keeffe's role in the development of a uniquely American abstract style, this book chronicles the shifts and changes in subject matter and style over the span of her long career. It adds significant new insight into her life, reproducing excerpts of previously sealed letters written by O'Keeffe to photographer and gallerist Alfred Stieglitz, whom she married in 1924. These previously unpublished letters, along with other primary documents referenced by the authors, offer an intimate glimpse into her creative method and intentions as an artist.

About this title

About the Author

Georgia O'Keeffe was born in 1887, the second of seven children, and grew up on a farm in Wisconsin. By the time she graduated from high school she was determined to become an artist, spending the next few years studying art at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Students League of New York, and later teaching art in Texas, Virginia and South Carolina. In 1916, Alfred Stieglitz exhibited 10 of her charcoal abstractions at his famous avant-garde gallery, 291, closing the gallery the next year with a solo exhibition of her works. From 1918 on they lived and worked together in New York and Lake George. Three years after Stieglitz's death in 1946, O'Keefe moved to New Mexico, whose stunning vistas and stark landscape configurations had inspired her work since 1929. It was here that she painted her most famous pictures, working in oils until her eyes failed her in the 1970s. She continued working in pencil and watercolor until 1982 and produced objects in clay until 1984, two years before she died at age 98.

Review

"A beautifully illustrated book about this icon, a liberated, unconventional, independent, and spirited American woman and celebrity who predated the feminist movement and had few peers." --Rose Safran "Maine Antique Digest" (08/01/2008)

About this edition

• Publisher: Pomegranate
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0764951971
• ISBN 13: 9780764951978
• Binding: Card Book
• Number of pages: 30