Please tell me about this?
O'Keeffe made these paintings at a turning point in her artistic career. She decided to abandon all her academic training and try to create something purely from her imagination. This was an innovative approach in 1916, when many artists were still trying to represent the human figure, landscapes, and other recognizable subjects in a very detailed, polished style.
She was following the example of her teacher Arthur Wesley Dow, who encouraged young artists to think about "filling a space in a beautiful way" rather than telling a story or copying reality. She was also familiar with the work of European avant-garde artists like Vassily Kandinsky and Henri Matisse, who saw color and form as important in themselves, acting as powerful vehicles of emotion and meaning.
As you move through the exhibition (although maybe you have already made it through the whole show?), keep these simple, flowing shapes in mind. They may come up again! Also, think about the color blue, because you'll see it re-appear about halfway through the show.
What made Georgia O'Keeffe's early work so "modern"?
I think a great quote to start with to understand O'Keeffe's modernism comes from the artist herself: "I realized that I had a lot of things in my head that others didn't have. I made up my mind to put down what was in my head."
O'Keeffe made these watercolors at a turning point in her artistic career. She decided to abandon all her academic training and try to create something purely from her imagination. This was an innovative approach in 1916, when many artists were still trying to represent the human figure, landscapes, and other recognizable subjects in a very detailed, polished style.
I love this series of paintings. Is there an order? Simple to more complex? Or the other way?
I agree, these are so wonderful and show how O'Keeffe was working in abstraction very early on! They progress from complex to simple.
This was a turning point in her career, when she decided to abandon her academic training and work purely from her imagination.
Ok thanks! Love the whole exhibit!
My daughters want to know if this painting is inspired by geodes.
That's a really interesting thought! The curator thinks it's inspired by a landscape because some of the forms suggest trees and hills.
O'Keeffe was always inspired by the natural world, as you'll continue to see throughout the exhibition.
Interesting! Thanks so much!
So my better half has a question: is there a connection between O'Keeffe's oil painting"Blue II" and "Blue 1-4"?
They aren't part of the same series, but during this time in her career she was exploring abstraction and working with black, white, and blue, which is why they are so similar!
The color blue features prominently in her work throughout her career, including her New Mexico paintings of the 1930s onwards.
Thanks!
Why do these watercolors all look so much alike?
Great question! They were a part of a series that shows O'Keeffe's process of abstraction at the early time in her career. Looking from #1 to #4, you can see how she moves from something more detailed as related to natural forms such as plants, to something completely abstract.
Along the way, she is removing elements and distilling the the work down to its most essential forms. During this time in her career, O'Keeffe had decided to abandon her academic training and paint purely from her imagination.
We thought it was the opposite...
Meaning going from the most abstract to the most "realistic"; right to left?
Yes.
That is very interesting, you are one of the first guests I've encountered who has read it that way.
At that time, many artists were concerned with painting and recreating things as they were in the real world. What makes O'Keefe's early work so modern is that she rejected this idea of what art was supposed to be at the time and, encouraged by her teacher Arthur Dow, decided to focus on filling a space beautifully.
This kind of simplicity is reflected in her wardrobe as I'm sure you will see as you continue in the exhibition.
Thanks for letting us know!
Were these watercolors done after the first charcoals she sent to Stieglitz?
These came slightly later. She went through a period where she had abandoned all of her formal training and was only working with abstractions. She worked exclusively in charcoals for a while (including the drawings that Stieglitz saw) and only reintroduced one color, blue, when she felt ready.
Got it!
Why the repetition of blue in these four watercolors?
O'Keeffe often worked in series, producing multiple interpretations of the same subject often with increased reduction in details.
Compare the four watercolors from 1 to 4, notice how it starts with the suggestion of a landscape and progresses to simple lines and curves.
Tell me more.
This is the last in a series of four watercolors. You can see her approach become more abstracted over the course of the series. This was a turning point in O'Keeffe's career when she was reteaching herself how to paint. She abandoned all her training and began again, first only in black and white and then incorporating one color---blue. She was following her teacher Arthur Dow's philosophy of "filling a space in a beautiful way" rather than telling a story or copying reality.
Tell me more.
This early watercolor by O'Keeffe is a great example of her move into abstraction. Although trained in more traditional styles of painting, O'Keeffe went into a modernist direction with these works. I just love the purity of shape and color. The blue is so vibrant.
These seem quite different than the flowers she is known for.
Definitely! In these, and a few other of O'Keeffe's early series you can see her process of abstraction. She starts with an image in mind, perhaps based on something she saw and then, as she continues to paint it over and over again, she distills the image down to its most abstract representation.
It is a very different process from her flower paintings. O'Keeffe's abstract works were created during a sort of cleansing period where she abandoned her academic training and started from scratch, exploring and discovering who she was as a painter. She then had a fresh approach when she returned to making representational works, like the flowers or her New Mexico landscapes which she becomes known for.
Thanks
Why is the paper wrinkled? Caused by the paint?
Yes! The water in the watercolors saturated this relatively thin paper and caused it to wrinkle against the dry part of the paper.
The thickness and varying tones of the brushstrokes suggests that O'Keeffe used a great deal of water when creating this watercolor painting.
Are these watercolor from the original 1916 Stieglitz exhibition of her work?
These are just slightly later than the charcoal drawings included in that first exhibition at his gallery. But these blue watercolors would have been very similar in forms and style to those charcoal abstractions that Steiglitz first saw.
At this point in her career, and when Stieglitz had first seen her work, she had abandoned all of her academic and decided to create purely from her imagination. She favored abstraction during this period
Were O'Keeffe's early abstractions meant to have humanoid elements?
Great question! These were made at a point in her career when the artist was consciously moving away from representational imagery. It could be that they privately represented people or real situations, but she intentionally cloaked them in abstraction.
She said, "I found that I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say in any other way—things that I had no words for."
Thank you so much!
Was O'Keeffe doing abstractions at the same time she was doing fashion watercolor?
Yes. Georgia O'Keeffe was making drawings in the style of fashion illustrations as she taught art. She used them as part of her curriculum. At the same time, in 1916 and 1917, she was also experimenting with abstraction. This period was certainly a time of experimentation in her artistic career.
Thanks.
Could you please tell me the significance of the color blue for Georgia O'Keeffe?
We're not aware of her assigning any particular symbolism to the color, but we do know that it was a true favorite of hers. It was the first color that she reintroduced into her work after a period of working only in black and white.
Watercolors like these were part of her process of reteaching herself to paint after abandoning her academic training in an effort to more faithfully represent the ideas that she had in her head.
Thank you!
Tell me more.
Around the time that Georgia O'Keeffe painted these watercolors, she was just reintroducing color to her work. She had abandoned her academic training and was only working in black and white abstraction. She was interested in reteaching herself to paint in order to more faithfully represent the ideas that she had in her head rather than what she saw in the real world.
She said: "I realized that I had a lot of things in my head that others didn't have. I made up my mind to put down what was in my head."
