Vancouver, Dec 8, 2007
Visit to Vancouver Art Gallery exhibition – “Georgia O’Keeffe: Nature and Abstraction”.[1]
Familiar with her work – very colorful, simplified, at time not so abstract, renderings of nature, big and small, from blown-up flowers and leaves to New Mexico desertic panoramas. Discovered though the esthetic beauty of the woman, even in advance stages of life. Photos taken by her professional photographer of husband, Alfred Stieglitz, abound; quite revealing, especially those from Lake George period.
Went upstairs to refresh my visual sense of Emily Carr and the Group of Seven; work of Edwin Holgate, the “8th member” of the Group, seen a couple of summers ago at Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, coming back on my internal screen…
Book on O’Keeffe, Kahldo and Carr, as an essay to assess what these 3 artists of 20th century represent, as women, of significance in modern art. Perfect book for Cynthia; I am bringing it back for her...
[1] This is what the Gallery has to say about the exhibition:
Georgia O’Keeffe: Nature and Abstraction presents a remarkable survey of the work of Georgia O’Keeffe, one of the legendary figures of twentieth-century art. The exhibition is comprised of a stunning selection of paintings that span the entirety of O’Keeffe’s career from 1918 to 1977. This presentation is the first solo exhibition of O’Keeffe’s work in Canada in more than fifty years. Through her landscape paintings and flower studies, the exhibition focuses on the central theme of O’Keeffe’s art — transforming nature into abstraction. This important grouping of paintings offers a distinct look at her consistent determination to re-interpret recognizable objects through painted abstractions that express the essential elements of form, colour and allusion. The dominant influence on O’Keeffe’s work in the 1930s and 1940s was the landscape of New Mexico, which she first visited in 1929 and where she spent almost every summer for the following 20 years, eventually settling there in 1949. During her long and prolific career, O’Keeffe established herself as a major figure in American art, first as a member of the “Alfred Stieglitz Circle” of modern artists in New York including Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley and John Marin. Although O’Keeffe’s work is aligned with that of some of the major figures of twentieth century Modernism —both European and American—such as Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso and Ellsworth Kelly, she is renowned for steadfastly remaining true to her own unique vision amid the many shifting artistic trends of the time. Since her death in 1986, her importance, eminence and influence have continued to grow, establishing O’Keeffe as an artist of great significance.The exhibition also includes an important selection of photographs of O’Keeffe taken early in her life by her husband, Alfred Stieglitz, and images taken by Todd Webb of O’Keeffe later in life. This extraordinary presentation of paintings and photographs offers a rare opportunity to view the life and work of one of America’s foremost artists. The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated book co-published by Skira, the Irish Museum of Modern Art and the Vancouver Art Gallery, with essays by Yvonne Scott, Achille Bonito Oliva and Richard D. Marshall.
Visit to Vancouver Art Gallery exhibition – “Georgia O’Keeffe: Nature and Abstraction”.[1]
Familiar with her work – very colorful, simplified, at time not so abstract, renderings of nature, big and small, from blown-up flowers and leaves to New Mexico desertic panoramas. Discovered though the esthetic beauty of the woman, even in advance stages of life. Photos taken by her professional photographer of husband, Alfred Stieglitz, abound; quite revealing, especially those from Lake George period.
Went upstairs to refresh my visual sense of Emily Carr and the Group of Seven; work of Edwin Holgate, the “8th member” of the Group, seen a couple of summers ago at Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, coming back on my internal screen…
Book on O’Keeffe, Kahldo and Carr, as an essay to assess what these 3 artists of 20th century represent, as women, of significance in modern art. Perfect book for Cynthia; I am bringing it back for her...
[1] This is what the Gallery has to say about the exhibition:
Georgia O’Keeffe: Nature and Abstraction presents a remarkable survey of the work of Georgia O’Keeffe, one of the legendary figures of twentieth-century art. The exhibition is comprised of a stunning selection of paintings that span the entirety of O’Keeffe’s career from 1918 to 1977. This presentation is the first solo exhibition of O’Keeffe’s work in Canada in more than fifty years. Through her landscape paintings and flower studies, the exhibition focuses on the central theme of O’Keeffe’s art — transforming nature into abstraction. This important grouping of paintings offers a distinct look at her consistent determination to re-interpret recognizable objects through painted abstractions that express the essential elements of form, colour and allusion. The dominant influence on O’Keeffe’s work in the 1930s and 1940s was the landscape of New Mexico, which she first visited in 1929 and where she spent almost every summer for the following 20 years, eventually settling there in 1949. During her long and prolific career, O’Keeffe established herself as a major figure in American art, first as a member of the “Alfred Stieglitz Circle” of modern artists in New York including Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley and John Marin. Although O’Keeffe’s work is aligned with that of some of the major figures of twentieth century Modernism —both European and American—such as Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso and Ellsworth Kelly, she is renowned for steadfastly remaining true to her own unique vision amid the many shifting artistic trends of the time. Since her death in 1986, her importance, eminence and influence have continued to grow, establishing O’Keeffe as an artist of great significance.The exhibition also includes an important selection of photographs of O’Keeffe taken early in her life by her husband, Alfred Stieglitz, and images taken by Todd Webb of O’Keeffe later in life. This extraordinary presentation of paintings and photographs offers a rare opportunity to view the life and work of one of America’s foremost artists. The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated book co-published by Skira, the Irish Museum of Modern Art and the Vancouver Art Gallery, with essays by Yvonne Scott, Achille Bonito Oliva and Richard D. Marshall.
