Our first production of the 2024–2025 season is The Brightness of Light by Kevin Puts, which tells the story of the relationship between modern artist Georgia O’Keeffe and gallerist, photographer, and her eventual husband, Alfred Stieglitz.
My postgraduate studies were in opera and music history, but I'm sad to say that I wasn't exposed to all that much visual art during my tenure—least of all, modern art. So, when I had the opportunity to visit the Art Institute of Chicago and see the current special exhibit, Georgia O'Keeffe: “My New Yorks”, I decided it was time to do a little dramaturgy of my own.
“My New Yorks would turn the world over.”
— Georgia O’Keeffe
Finding her Voice
Going in, I was aware of O'Keeffe’s fame for her paintings of flowers and landscapes of the Southwest. While exploring this exhibit, I learned how the artistic voice that she used in these most famous works was honed while she lived and experimented with urban landscapes in New York City.
I was surprised to find out that she wasn't initially drawn to painting as a career, and felt expressively trapped by the technical tradition that she had been trained in, realism. It wasn't until she studied the theories of artist Arthur Wesley Dow in 1914 that O’Keeffe felt a new sense of freedom of expression in her art through abstractionism.
Before abstractionism:
After abstractionism:
The curators of “My New Yorks” described that at this point, her work became more abstract because she no longer focused on the constraints of replication. Instead, she shifted to depicting the subconscious feeling she got from a subject—what she described as her “unknown”—using the base shapes, rhythms, strong lines, and vivid colors of her subjects. In this way, she painted New York City through a lens that the world had never seen before, gaining recognition as one of America's most influential artists by the mid-1920s.
Her Sense of Place
“My New Yorks” celebrates how O'Keeffe used her connection to the world around her as a vessel to communicate the emotional response she had while experiencing a place.
In 1918 O’Keeffe moved to New York City and lived with Alfred Stieglitz. During this time, she was fascinated with interpreting the feeling of being small and witnessing something much larger than herself—the street-view of giant skyscrapers was a common subject of hers. In other works, even when a massive structure like a skyscraper wasn't present, she continued to be inspired by these proportions, taking a small part of a landscape and bringing it to the front of the canvas.
In 1929, she spent her first summer in Taos, New Mexico—a visit that changed her art yet again, as New Mexico became another source of inspiration and motivation. After her initial visit, she spent every summer in New Mexico until eventually moving there permanently in 1949, shortly after Stieglitz's death.
“The first year I was [in New Mexico], because there were no flowers, I began picking up bones … It never occurs to me that [bones] have anything to do with death—they are very lively!”
– Georgia O'Keeffe, 1977
Forging her Path
A major theme I noticed throughout the narrative of “My New Yorks” was that O'Keeffe was never afraid to ruffle any feathers in the name of artistic freedom. This principle is what led her through her artistic journey, making her a visionary in the modernist art movement at a time when the industry was very male-dominated.
One of my favorite moments from the exhibit was this anecdote, shared by exhibit curator Annelise Madsen, referencing her painting New York Street with Moon (1925):
“Stieglitz owned a gallery and O'Keeffe was showing her work there. New York Street with Moon was ready in time for her exhibition that opened in 1925—the group show, Seven Americans. But, New York Street with Moon was not hung. Many decades later, O'Keeffe recollected, ‘The men decided they didn't want me to paint New York. They wouldn't let me hang the picture. They told me to leave New York to the men. I was furious.'
So New York Street with Moon did not go on the walls in 1925, but it did a year later. O'Keeffe had a solo exhibition at Stieglitz’s Gallery, and it was a hit. As she recalled, ‘It sold on the very first day of the show, the very first picture sold. From then on, they let me paint New York.'“
FInal Thoughts
Through visiting this exhibit, I got a taste of Georgia O’Keeffe’s artistic output and learned so much about who she was and how she experienced the world. I gained a new admiration for her process and legacy, motivating me to continue learning more about her life as an artist and as a human being.
In my excited and fascinated period of discovery, I was struck with the realization that I had never really tried to understand modern visual art before. Similar to avant-garde classical music, I didn't know how to enjoy it until I made an effort to understand the art and the people who created it. In learning about O'Keeffe, I found myself making new connections about her emotional process of creating these works, even drawing parallels to my own life and experiences. This introduction Georgia O'Keeffe has inspired me, and I am even more excited to experience the story of The Brightness of Light.
Taken at Georgia O'Keeffe: “My New Yorks” at the Art Institute of Chicago in 2024.
Credits:
Georgia O’Keeffe: “My New Yorks” is being presented at the Art Institute of Chicago through September 22, 2024. Exhibit curators are Sarah Kelly Oehler, Field-McCormick Chair and Curator, Arts of the Americas, and vice president, Curatorial Strategy, and Annelise K. Madsen, Gilda and Henry Buchbinder Associate Curator, Arts of the Americas.
In addition to references and notes from the exhibit, this article uses supplementary information from the following sources:
- “About Georgia O’Keeffe.” The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, January 23, 2023. https://www.okeeffemuseum.org/about-georgia-okeeffe/.
- Art Collection Online. Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. https://collections.okeeffemuseum.org/object/
- Georgia O’Keeffe. Film. United States: PBS, 1977.
- Stamberg, Susan. “Stieglitz and O’Keeffe: Their Love and Life in Letters.” NPR, July 21, 2011. https://www.npr.org/2011/07/21/138467808/stieglitz-and-okeeffe-their-love-and-life-in-letters.
