Oscillation by rtjennings

OSCILLATION : LIFE, WORK & POETRY

The Life and Work of Georgia Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Keeffe with Accompaniment by Margaret Atwood

Compiled + Edited by Richard Jennings

OSCILLATION : LIFE, WORK & POETRY

Book Design ÂŠ2015 by Richard Jennings Published by Richard Jennings for online course GR 601, MS: Type Systems. Taught by Lian Ng in Fall 2015 at Academy of Art University, San Francisco, California. Printed and bound by Blurb.com

OSCILLATION : LIFE, WORK & POETRY

The Life and Work of Georgia Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Keeffe with Accompaniment by Margaret Atwood

Compiled + Edited by Richard Jennings

For David, may I always be the air that inhabits you for a moment only, that unnoticed & that necessary.

contents 01 EARLY YEARS .............................................................................. 11 02 LIFE IN TEXAS .....................................25 .. 03 LIFE IN NEW YORK CITY ................................................................................................37 .. 04 LATER YEARS IN NEW MEXICO ............................... 59 .. 05 INDEX ............. 77 ..

foreword

I have always been inspired by both O’Keeffe’s and Atwood’s bodies of work. Every time I think about Georgia O’Keeffe and her work I feel like I am taking in a deep breath of fresh air. I feel the same about the poetry of Margaret Atwood. I have to share with you how they both played a pivotal role in my life. O’Keeffe was the first artist that I fell in love with. I am captivated by the fluidity of her work and fascinated with the story of her life. She was my inspiration for attending art school.

When I first moved to New York City, I would ride the subway line to and from work. It was an extremely lonely time for me trying to acclimate to a new environment. I remember one day riding the subway and reading one of the posters for the MTA’s Poetry In Motion campaign. It was a quote from Atwood’s poem, Variation on the Word Sleep, “I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed and that necessary.” Immediately I thought about various moments in my life that have come and gone but are still important to how I respond to the world around me today.

01 EARLY YEARS

Georgia Totto O’Keeffe November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986 an American artist Born near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, O’Keeffe first came to the attention of the New York art community in 1916, several decades before women had gained access to art training in America’s colleges and universities. She made large-format paintings of enlarged blossoms, presenting them close up as if seen through a magnifying lens, and New York buildings, most of which date from the same decade. Beginning in 1929, when she first began working part of the year in Northern New Mexico—which she made her permanent home in 1949—O’Keeffe depicted subjects specific to that area. O’Keeffe has been recognized as the Mother of American Modernism.

Drawing XIII Charcoal on paper

OSCILL ATION: LIFE, WORK & POETRY

EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION Georgia O’Keeffe was born on November 15, 1887, in a farmhouse near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. Her parents, Francis Calyxtus O’Keeffe and Ida (Totto) O’Keeffe, were dairy farmers. Her father was of Irish descent. Ida Totto’s father, George Victor Totto, for whom Georgia O’Keeffe was named, was a Hungarian count who came to America in 1848.

Georgia was the second of seven O’Keeffe children, and the first daughter. O’Keeffe attended Town Hall School in Sun Prairie. By age ten she had decided to become an artist, and she and her sister received art instruction from local watercolorist Sara Mann. O’Keeffe attended high school at Sacred Heart Academy in Madison, Wisconsin, as a boarder between 1901 and 1902. In Fall 1902 the O’Keeffes moved from Wisconsin to the close-knit neighborhood of Peacock Hill in Williamsburg, Virginia. Georgia stayed in Wisconsin with her aunt and attended Madison High School, then joined her family in Virginia in 1903. She completed high school as a boarder at Chatham Episcopal Institute in Virginia (now Chatham Hall), and graduated in 1905. She was a member of Kappa Delta.

CHAPTER 01 EARLY YEARS

small poppy with Vine i charcoal on paper

OSCILL ATION: LIFE, WORK & POETRY

small poppy with Vine ii charcoal on paper

CHAPTER 01 EARLY YEARS

OSCILL ATION: LIFE, WORK & POETRY

I would like to watch you sleeping, which may not happen. I would like to watch you, sleeping. I would like to sleep with you, to enter your sleep as its smooth dark wave slides over my head and walk with you through that lucent wavering forest of bluegreen leaves with its watery sun & three moons towards the cave where you must descend, towards your worst fear I would like to watch you sleeping, which may not happen. I would like to watch you, sleeping. I would like to sleep with you, to enter your sleep as its smooth dark wave slides over my head and walk with you through that lucent wavering forest of bluegreen leaves with its watery sun & three moons towards the cave where you must descend, towards your worst fear I would like to watch you sleeping, which may not happen. I would like to watch you, sleeping. I would like to sleep with you, to enter your sleep as its smooth dark wave slides over my head and walk with you through that lucent wavering forest of bluegreen leaves with its watery sun & three moons towards the cave where you must descend, towards your worst fear I would like to watch you sleeping, which may not happen. I would like to watch you, sleeping. I would like to sleep with you, to enter your sleep as its smooth dark wave slides over my head and walk with you through that lucent wavering forest of bluegreen leaves with its watery sun & three moons towards the cave where you must descend, towards your worst fear I would like to watch you sleeping, which may not happen. I would like to watch you, sleeping. I would like to sleep with you, to enter your sleep as its smooth dark wave slides over my head and walk with you through that lucent wavering forest of bluegreen leaves with its watery sun & three moons towards the cave where you must descend, towards your worst fear I would like to watch you sleeping, which may not happen. I would like to watch you, sleeping. I would like to sleep with you, to enter your sleep as its smooth dark wave slides over my head and walk with you through that lucent wavering forest of bluegreen leaves with its watery sun & three moons towards the cave where you must descend, towards your worst fear I would like to watch you sleeping, which may not happen. I would like to watch you, sleeping. I would like to sleep with you, to enter your sleep as its smooth dark wave slides over my head and walk with you through that lucent wavering forest of bluegreen leaves with its watery sun & three moons towards the cave where you must descend, towards your worst fear I would like to watch you sleeping, which may not happen. I would like to watch you, sleeping. I would like to sleep with you, to enter your sleep as its smooth dark wave slides over my head and walk with you through that lucent wavering forest of bluegreen leaves with its watery sun & three moons towards the cave where you must descend, towards your worst fear I would like to watch you sleeping, which may not happen. I would like to watch you, sleeping. I would like to sleep with you, to enter your sleep as its smooth dark wave slides over my head and walk with you through that lucent wavering forest of bluegreen leaves with its watery sun & three moons towards the cave where you must descend, towards your worst fear I would like to watch you sleeping, which may not happen. I would like to watch you, sleeping. I would like to sleep with you, to enter your sleep as its smooth dark wave slides over my head and walk

CHAPTER 01 EARLY YEARS

with you through that lucent wavering forest of bluegreen leaves with its watery sun & three moons towards the cave where you must descend, towards your worst fear I would like to watch you sleeping, which may not happen. I would like to watch you, sleeping. I would like to sleep with you, to enter your sleep as its smooth dark wave slides over my head and walk with you through that lucent wavering forest of bluegreen leaves with its watery sun & three moons towards the cave where you must descend, towards your worst fear I would like to watch you sleeping, which may not happen. I would like to watch you, sleeping. I would like to sleep with you, to enter your sleep as its smooth dark wave slides over my head and walk with you through that lucent wavering forest of bluegreen leaves with its watery sun & three moons towards the cave where you must descend, towards your worst fear I would like to watch you sleeping, which may not happen. I would like to watch you, sleeping. I would like to sleep with you, to enter your sleep as its smooth dark wave slides over my head and walk with you through that lucent wavering forest of bluegreen leaves with its watery sun & three moons towards the cave where you must descend, towards your worst fear and walk with you through that lucent wavering forest of bluegreen leaves with its watery sun & three moons towards the cave where you must descend, towards your worst fear smooth dark wave slides over my head and walk with you through that lucent wavering forest of bluegreen leaves with its watery sun & three moons towards the cave where you must descend, towards your worst fear I would like to sleep with you, to enter your sleep as its smooth dark wave slides over my head and walk with you through that lucent wavering forest of bluegreen leaves with its watery sun & three moons towards the cave where you must descend, towards your worst fear I would like to watch you sleeping, which may not happen. I would like to watch you, sleeping. I would like to sleep with you, to enter your sleep as its smooth dark wave slides over my head and walk with you through that lucent wavering forest of bluegreen leaves with its watery sun & three moons towards the cave where you must descend, towards your worst fear I would like to watch you sleeping, which may not happen. the cave where you must descend, towards your worst fear I would like to watch you sleeping, which may not happen. I would like to watch you, sleeping. I would like to sleep with you, to enter your sleep as its smooth dark wave slides over my head and walk with you through that lucent wavering forest of bluegreen leaves with its watery sun & three moons towards the cave where you must descend, towards your worst fear I would like to watch you sleeping, which may not happen. I would like to watch you, sleeping. I would like to sleep with you, to enter your sleep as its smooth dark wave slides over my head and walk with you through that lucent wavering forest of bluegreen leaves with its watery sun & three moons towards the cave where you must descend, towards your worst fear I would like to watch you sleeping, which may not happen. I would like to watch you, sleeping. I would like to sleep with you, to enter your sleep as its smooth dark wave slides over my head and walk with you through that lucent wavering forest of bluegreen leaves with its watery sun & three moons towards the cave where you must descend, towards your worst fear

OSCILL ATION: LIFE, WORK & POETRY

ABS TR AC TION WITH CURVE AND CIRCLE Charcoal on paper

BL ACK LINE S WATERCOLOR on paper

CHAPTER 01 EARLY YEARS

O’Keeffe relocates to Manhattan in September and studies at the Art Students League

O’Keeffe family sold their farm and moved to Williamsburg, VA but Georgia remained in Madison, WI with her mother’s sister

Graduates high school, studied art education at the Art Institute of Chicago; Gallery 291 opens in Manhattan

1887

1903

1902

1906

1905

1907

Born Sun Prairie, WI, November 15, the second of seven children (2 boys, 5 girls) Returns to Williamsburg, contracted typhoid fever, bedridden 4 months and losses all her hair

Georgia moves to be with her family in Williamsburg, VA She attends Chatham Episcopal Institute, and studies art

OSCILL ATION: LIFE, WORK & POETRY

Persuaded by her sisters to join them in summer drawing course for elementary school teachers at University of Virginia; The class with taught by Alon Bement (follower of Arthur Wesley Dow) who introduces Georgia to Dow’s teachings and styles of abstracting from nature; Invited by Bement to assist him the following summer at UVA, a position she returned to every summer until 1916

Mother diagnosed with tuberculosis and relocated to Charlottsville, VA, seeking milder climate

1908

1910

1909

1911

1912

O’Keeffe ill with measles in Chicago, relocated to her mother to recover

Taught art as temporary instructor at Chatham Episcopal Institute in VA, Spring 1911

Visited Gallery 291, saw exhibit of Rodin drawings, saw but did not meet Alfred Stieglitz Selected as recipient of ASL stilllife prize, June; earned a summer residency at Lake George in upstate NY Returned to Williamsburg; O’Keeffe family’s financial troubles increased Relocated to Chicago in November, when her family stopped supporting her; Began freelance work as a commercial artist, lived with relatives, ceased painting for two years

CHAPTER 01 EARLY YEARS

UNTITLED ( ABS TR AC TION/PORTR AIT OF PAUL S TR AND) WATERCOLOR ON PAPER

OSCILL ATION: LIFE, WORK & POETRY

PORTR AIT - W - NO. III WATERCOLOR on paper

CHAPTER 01 EARLY YEARS

02 LIFE IN TEXAS O’Keeffe studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from 1905 to 1906. In 1907, she attended the Art Students League in New York City, where she studied under William Merritt Chase. In 1908, she won the League’s William Merritt Chase still-life prize for her oil painting Dead Rabbit with Copper Pot. Her prize was a scholarship to attend the League’s outdoor summer school at Lake George, New York. While in the city in 1908, O’Keeffe attended an exhibition of Rodin’s watercolors at the 291, owned by her future husband, photographer Alfred Stieglitz.

OSCILL ATION: LIFE, WORK & POETRY

O’Keeffe abandoned the idea of pursuing a career as an artist in the fall of 1908, claiming that she could never distinguish herself as an artist within the mimetic tradition, which had formed the basis of her art training. She took a job in Chicago as a commercial artist. She did not paint for four years, and said that the smell of turpentine made her sick. She was inspired to paint again in 1912, when she attended a class at the University of Virginia Summer School, where she was introduced to the innovative ideas of Arthur Wesley Dow by Alon Bement. Dow encouraged artists to express themselves using line, color, and shading harmoniously. From 1912–14, she taught art in the public schools in Amarillo in the

Texas Panhandle. She attended Teachers College of Columbia University from 1914–15, where she took classes from Dow, who greatly influenced O’Keeffe’s thinking about the process of making art. She served as a teaching assistant to Bement during the summer from 1913–16 and taught at Columbia College, Columbia, South Carolina in the fall of 1915, where she completed a series of highly innovative charcoal abstractions. After further course work at Columbia in the spring of 1916 and summer teaching for Bement, she took a job as head of the art department at West Texas State Normal College from fall 1916 to February 1918, the fledgling West Texas A&M University in Canyon just south of Amarillo. While there, she often visited the Palo Duro Canyon, making its forms a subject in her work.

CHAPTER 02 LIFE IN TEX AS

I would like to give you the silver branch, the small white flower, the one word that will protect you from the grief at the center of your dream, from the grief at the center.

OSCILL ATION: LIFE, WORK & POETRY

CHAPTER 02 LIFE IN TEX AS

OSCILL ATION: LIFE, WORK & POETRY

31 Continued her position with Amarillo City Public School; She gains support from administration even in light of her refusal to use textbooks; Salary increased to $80 per month, making her one of the highest paid female instructors in the district Amory Show opened in NYC in February She passes up the opportunity to teach full time at University of Virginia after her summer assist with Bement for Texas

1912

Relocates to NYC in September; studies at Columbia University Teachersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; College under Dow, fall 1914 to spring 1915; Supported financially by her aunt, frequently visiting Gallery 291, saw exhibits of the art of Picasso, Braque, Picabia, Marin, and others

1914

1913

Relocated to Amarillo, TX in August to begin a position as Supervisor of Drawing and Penmanship with Amarillo City Public School on September 2; Records indicate at her hire date she was paid a salary of $75 per month; she was 24; She refuses to use state mandated textbooks

1915

Continues her position at ACPS, attends art convention that spring; Returns to UVA in the summer and begins relationship with Arthur Macmahon, a political science professor at Columbia University; Her contract is not renewed with ACPS over a salary dispute

CHAPTER 02 LIFE IN TEX AS

Alfred Steiglitz viewed her charcoal drawings on January 1, and was taken by them that he intended to show her pieces at Gallery 291 January 5, receives letter from Robert Bartow Cousins, President of West Texas State Normal College (now West Texas A&M University), offering her a position as head of the art department; Decides to accept the position. Quit her job at Columbia College, relocated to NYC in March, again studied with Dow, lived with Anita Pollitzer’s relatives to afford tuition at CTC 1915

1916

Completed spring semester at Columbia University Teachers’ College under Dow Returned to UVA to assist Bement and run her mother’s boarding house that summer Relocated to Columbia, SC to teach at Columbia College, fall 1915 to March 1916, the position turns out to be a disappointment Begins work on a series of abstractions

Writes to her best friend Anita Pollitzer in October that she is falling in love with Macmahon By late October, made numerous charcoal drawings after nature and sends to Anita who praised and asks if she can show them to Alfred Steiglitz Wrote her first letter to Alfred Steiglitz (he was 52, she was 28)

Alfred Steiglitz featured 10 of her charcoal abstractions in the group exhibition Georgia O’Keeffe – Charles Duncan – René Lafferty at Gallery 291, May 23–July 5; she official meets and forms a friendship with Steiglitz, the two begin writing each other with growing fondness Critics, encouraged by Steiglitz, interpreted her charcoals in sexualized terms Her mother dies May 2, she leaves NYC for Charlottesville, returns to NYC, May 8 Attends her opening at Gallery 291, May 23

Relocated to VA, mid-June; taught at UVA, summer; Steiglitz sends her issues of Camera Work that she describes as “pure fun and joy”; Steiglitz continues to send magazines until June 1917 She begins work on 23 watercolor abstractions, this is the beginning of color into her work Wrote to Steiglitz about her emotional attachment to Macmahon, begins lengthy and frequent correspondence with Steiglitz Early September, relocates to Canyon, TX to being her faculty position at WTSN; Her salary is $150 per month

OSCILL ATION: LIFE, WORK & POETRY

Writes to Anita Pollitzer, this is first mention of her love for Palo Duro Canyon. She spends this year walking and observing aspects of the canyon; She writes how she would, “rather live [in Canyon] than any place I know if I could get to New York sometimes… I just want to get out where there is space and breath.”

Suffering from illness she decides to take a month of sick leave January 20

November 4, publishes a drawing in Vanity Fair

February 4, decides to leave WTSN due to her health; Moves to San Antonio, TX

November 22–December 20, more of her work is featured in a group show at Gallery 291

May, Paul Strand visits O’Keeffe sent by Steiglitz to convince her to move to NYC

December 26, she calls it quits with Macmahon December 30, she meets Rector Lester and has a falling out with her landlord Susie Ackerman over Lester visiting her room 1917

1918

January O’Keeffe gives a talk on cubism to a very enthusiastic WTSN audience January began teaching 1st and 2nd graders at WTSN training school, she absolutely enjoyed this part of teaching

April 2, Steiglitz opens O’Keeffe’s first solo show at Gallery 291; critics respond by calling her a ‘Futurist’

February 3, America severs diplomatic ties with Germany

April 6, America declared war on Germany

February 16, considers resigning at WTSN because there is no time to herself or to paint

Mid-April, Steiglitz photographs Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain

February 19, decides to stay one more quarter and asks that Anita come and stay with her during her summer breaks February 28, writes to Steiglitz about how locals comment on her unusual manner of dress because she always wore black

May 24, arrives in NYC after reading that Steiglitz wants to close Gallery 291; she meets Paul Strand and develops romantic feelings for him Late May, Steiglitz photographs her for the first time in front of her works June 4, arrived back in Canyon to teach summer courses June 8, Sold her first drawing to a NY patron for $50 June 30, Gallery 291 closes Early August, publishes her second drawing in Vanity Fair December 29, she rediscovers her desire to make art

CHAPTER 02 LIFE IN TEX AS

nude series watercolor on paper

OSCILL ATION: LIFE, WORK & POETRY

nude series VII watercolor on paper

CHAPTER 02 LIFE IN TEX AS

03 LIFE IN NEW YORK CITY Early in 1916, Anita Pollitzer took some of the charcoal drawings O’Keeffe had made in the fall of 1915, which she had mailed to Pollitzer from South Carolina, to Alfred Stieglitz at his 291 gallery. He told Pollitzer that the drawings were the “purest, finest, sincerest things that had entered 291 in a long while”, and that he would like to show them. O’Keeffe had first visited 291 in 1908, but did not speak with Stieglitz then, although she came to have high regard for him and to know him in the spring of 1916, when she was in New York at Teachers College.

In April 1916, he exhibited ten of her drawings at 291. Although O’Keeffe knew that Stieglitz was planning to exhibit her work, he had not told her when, and she was surprised to learn that her work was on view; she confronted Stieglitz over the drawings but agreed to let them remain on exhibit. Stieglitz organized O’Keeffe’s first solo show at 291 in April 1917, which included oil paintings and watercolors completed in Texas.

drawing v charcoal on paper

OSCILL ATION: LIFE, WORK & POETRY

CHAPTER 03 LIFE IN NEW YORK CIT Y

blue black and grey oil on canvas

CAREER IN NEW YORK Stieglitz and O’Keeffe corresponded frequently beginning in 1916, and in June 1918, she accepted Stieglitz’s invitation to move to New York to devote all of her time to her work. The two were deeply in love, and shortly after her arrival, they began living together, even though the then-married Stieglitz was 23 years her senior. That year Stieglitz first took O’Keeffe to his family home at the village of Lake

George in New York’s Adirondack Mountains, and they spent part of every year in the city until 1929, when O’Keeffe spent the first of many summers painting in New Mexico. In 1924 Stieglitz’s divorce was finally approved by a judge, and within four months he and O’Keeffe married. It was a small, private ceremony at Marin’s house, and afterward the couple went back home. There was no reception, festivities or honeymoon. O’Keeffe said later that they married in order to help soothe the troubles of Stieglitz’s daughter Kitty, who at that time was being treated in a sanatorium for depression and hallucinations. The marriage did not seem to have any immediate effect on either Stieglitz or O’Keeffe; they both continued working on their individual projects as they had before. For the rest of their lives together, their relationship was, as biographer Benita Eisler characterized it,

OSCILL ATION: LIFE, WORK & POETRY

“A collusion… a system of deals and trade-offs, tacitly agreed to and carried out, for the most part, without the exchange of a word. Preferring avoidance to confrontation on most issues, O’Keeffe was the principal agent of collusion in their union.”

CHAPTER 03 LIFE IN NEW YORK CIT Y

east river from the 30th story of the shelton hotel oil on canvas

OSCILL ATION: LIFE, WORK & POETRY

CHAPTER 03 LIFE IN NEW YORK CIT Y

New york night oil on canvas

blue line oil on canvas

OSCILL ATION: LIFE, WORK & POETRY

Stieglitz started photographing O’Keeffe when she visited him in New York to see her 1917 exhibition. By 1937, when he retired from photography, he had made more than 350 portraits of her. Most of the more erotic photographs were made in the 1910s and early 1920s. In February 1921, forty-five of Stieglitz’s photographs, including many of O’Keeffe, some of which depicted her in the nude, were exhibited in a retrospective exhibition at the Anderson Galleries that created a public sensation. A remark she once made to Pollitzer about the nude photographs may be the best indication of O’Keefe’s ultimate reaction to being their subject. She said, “I felt somehow that the photographs had nothing to do with me personally.” In 1978, she wrote about how distant from them she had become: “When I look over the photographs Stieglitz took of me—some of them more than sixty years ago—I wonder who that person is. It is as if in my one life I have lived many lives. If the person in the photographs were living in this world today, she would be quite a different person but it doesn’t matter.” Beginning in 1918, O’Keeffe came to know the many early American modernists who were part of Stieglitz’s circle of artists, including Charles Demuth, Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, John Marin, Paul Strand and Edward Steichen. Strand’s

photography, as well as that of Stieglitz and his many photographer friends, inspired O’Keeffe’s work. Soon after 1918, O’Keeffe began working primarily in oil, a shift away from having worked primarily in watercolor in the earlier 1910s. By the mid-1920s, O’Keeffe began making large-scale paintings of natural forms at close range, as if seen through a magnifying lens. In 1924 she painted her first large-scale flower painting Petunia, No. 2, which was first exhibited in 1925. She also completed a significant body of paintings of New York buildings, such as City Night and New York—Night, 1926, and Radiator Bldg—Night, New York, 1927.

CHAPTER 03 LIFE IN NEW YORK CIT Y

O’Keeffe turned to working more representationally in the 1920s in an effort to move her critics away from Freudian interpretations. Her earlier work had been mostly abstract, but works such as Black Iris III (1926) evoke a veiled representation of female genitalia while also accurately depicting the center of an iris. O’Keeffe consistently denied the validity of Freudian interpretations of her art, but fifty years after it had first been interpreted in that way, many prominent feminist artists assessed her work similarly—in essential terms—such as Judy Chicago, who gave O’Keeffe a prominent place in her The Dinner Party. Although 1970s feminists celebrated O’Keeffe as the originator of “female iconography”, she rejected their celebration of her work and refused to cooperate with any of their projects. In 1922, the New York Sun published an article quoting O’Keeffe: “It is only by selection, by elimination, and by emphasis that we get at the real meaning of things.” Inspired by Precisionism, The Green Apple, completed in 1922, depicts her notion of simple, meaningful life. Beginning in 1923, Stieglitz organized annual exhibitions of O’Keeffe’s work. By the mid-1920s, O’Keeffe had become known as one of the most important American artists. Her work commanded high prices; in 1928, Stieglitz masterminded a sale of six of her calla lily paintings for US$25,000, which was the largest sum ever paid for a group of paintings by a living American artist. Though the sale fell through, Stieglitz’s promotion of the potential sale drew extensive media attention.

OSCILL ATION: LIFE, WORK & POETRY

CHAPTER 03 LIFE IN NEW YORK CIT Y

CAREER HAWAII

CAREER NEW MEXICO

In 1938, the advertising agency N. W. Ayer & Son approached O’Keeffe about creating two paintings for the Hawaiian Pineapple Company (now Dole Food Company) to use in their advertising. Other artists who produced paintings of Hawaii for the Hawaiian Pineapple Company’s advertising include Lloyd Sexton, Jr., Millard Sheets, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Isamu Noguchi, and Miguel Covarrubias. She arrived in Honolulu February 8, 1939, aboard the SS Lurline, and spent nine weeks in Oahu, Maui, Kauai, and the island of Hawaii. She painted flowers, landscapes, and traditional Hawaiian fishhooks. However, she did not paint the requested pineapple until after the Hawaiian Pineapple Company sent a plant to her New York studio.

By 1929, O’Keeffe acted on her increasing need to find a new source of inspiration for her work and to escape summers at Lake George, where she was surrounded by the Stieglitz family and their friends. O’Keeffe had considered finding a studio separate from Lake George in upstate New York and had also thought about spending the summer in Europe, but opted instead to travel to Santa Fe, with her friend Rebecca Strand. The two set out by train in May 1929 and soon after their arrival, Mabel Dodge Luhan moved them to her house in Taos and provided them with studios. O’Keeffe went on many pack trips exploring the rugged mountains and deserts of the region that summer and later visited the nearby D. H. Lawrence Ranch, where she completed her now famous oil painting, The Lawrence Tree, currently owned by the Wadsworth Athenaeum in Hartford, Connecticut. While in Taos in 1929, O’Keeffe visited and painted the nearby historical San Francisco de Asis Mission Church at Ranchos de Taos. She made several paintings of the church, as had many artists, and her painting of a fragment of it silhouetted against the sky captured it in a different way.

OSCILL ATION: LIFE, WORK & POETRY

Between 1929 and 1949, O’Keeffe spent part of nearly every year working in New Mexico. She collected rocks and bones from the desert floor and made them and the distinctive architectural and landscape forms of the area subjects in her work. She also went on several camping trips with friends, visiting important sites in the Southwest, and in 1961, she and others, including photographers Eliot Porter and Todd Webb, went on a rafting trip down the Colorado River about Glen Canyon, Utah. Late in 1932, O’Keeffe suffered a nervous breakdown that was brought on, in part, because she was unable to complete a Radio City Music Hall mural project that had fallen behind schedule. She was hospitalized in early 1933 and did not paint again until January 1934. In the spring of 1933 and 1934, O’Keeffe recuperated in Bermuda, and she returned to New Mexico in the summer of 1934. In August of that year, she visited Ghost Ranch, north of Abiquiu, for the first time and decided immediately to live there; in 1940, she purchased a house on the ranch property. The varicolored cliffs of Ghost Ranch inspired some of her most famous landscapes. In 1977, O’Keeffe wrote: “[the] cliffs over there are almost painted for you—you think—until you try to paint them.” Among guests to visit her at the ranch over the years were Charles and Anne Lindbergh, singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, poet Allen Ginsberg, and photographer Ansel Adams.

Known as a loner, O’Keeffe explored the land she loved often in her Ford Model A, which she purchased and learned to drive in 1929. She often talked about her fondness for Ghost Ranch and Northern New Mexico, as in 1943, when she explained: “Such a beautiful, untouched lonely feeling place, such a fine part of what I call the ‘Faraway’. It is a place I’ve painted before… even now I must do it again.” In the 1930s and 1940s, O’Keeffe’s reputation and popularity continued to grow, earning her numerous commissions. Her work was included in exhibitions in and around New York. She completed Summer Days, a painting featuring a deer’s skull adorned with various wildflowers, against a desert background in 1936, and it became one of her most famous and well-known works. During the 1940s O’Keeffe had two one-woman retrospectives, the first at the Art Institute of Chicago (1943), and the second in 1946 at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in Manhattan, the first retrospective MOMA

CHAPTER 03 LIFE IN NEW YORK CIT Y

held for a woman artist. O’Keeffe enjoyed many accolades and honorary degrees from numerous universities. In the mid-1940s, the Whitney Museum of American Art in Manhattan sponsored a project to establish the first catalogue of her work.

As early as 1936, O’Keeffe developed an intense interest in what is called the Black Place, which was about 150 miles west of her Ghost Ranch house, and she made an extensive series of paintings of this site in the 1940s. She traveled and camped there often with her friend, Maria Chabot, and in 1945 with Eliot Porter as well as in subsequent years, 1959, and 1977. O’Keeffe said that the Black Place resembled “a mile of elephants with gray hills and white sand at their feet.” At times the wind was so strong when she was painting there that she had trouble keeping her canvas on the easel. When the heat from the sun became intense, she crawled under her car for shade. The Black Place still remains one the most remote and uninhabited.

She also made paintings of the White Place, a white rock formation located near her Abiquiu house. In 1945, O’Keeffe bought a second house, an abandoned hacienda in Abiquiu, some 18 miles (26 km) south of Ghost Ranch. The Abiquiu house was renovated through 1949 by Chabot.

OSCILL ATION: LIFE, WORK & POETRY

CHAPTER 03 LIFE IN NEW YORK CIT Y

Untitled (city night) oil on canvas

52 Moved with Steiglitz into the new Shelton Hotel on Lexington Ave in NYC, November She begins her series of 30 abstractions of skyscrapers and scenes of NYC (1925–29), It also at this time that she begins painting large-scale depictions of flowers

June 10, moves to NYC accompanied by Strand to focus on her painting, she shifts mainly to larger oil paintings on canvas Mid-July, Steiglitz moves in with O’Keeffe having separated from his first wife (he was 54; she was 30); Steiglitz begins his photographic portraits of her, including nudes, semi-nudes, and images of her hands November 11, her father dies

Steiglitz exhibits 145 of his photographic works at Anderson Galleries in NYC, including 45 portraits of her, some nude

1919

1918

1924

1921

1925

O’Keeffe marries Steiglitz

O’Keeffe makes a shift in subjects to scenes of Lake George, a principal focus of her until 1929, when she spent extended time in NM

OSCILL ATION: LIFE, WORK & POETRY

Visited Canyon, TX and PDC during an automobile trip from Santa Fe, NM to NYC

April, O’Keeffe accepts $1500 commission to paint mural for powder room in Radio City Music Hall, scheduled to open at end of year

1929

1933

1932

1936

1935

Hospitalized for psychoneurosis in February

January, Stieglitz opens Georgia O’Keeffe: Exhibition of Recent Paintings, 1935, at the art gallery An American Place

Visits Taos, NM for four months; her work appeared in the exhibition Paintings by 19 Living Americans at the MoMA in NYC in December

April, O’Keeffe and Stieglitz move from Shelton Hotel to penthouse apartment at 405 East 54th Street June, O’Keeffe travels to New Mexico; first summer living in the house at Ghost Ranch she buys in 1940, Rancho de los Burros July, in the fall, receives $10,000 commission from Elizabeth Arden to make large painting for new exercise salon in New York

CHAPTER 03 LIFE IN NEW YORK CIT Y

OSCILL ATION: LIFE, WORK & POETRY

brooklyn bridge oil on masonite

Purchased house in Abiquiu, NM

January through early summer, Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Keeffe in New York (where she primarily lives until 1949), working to settle the Stieglitz Estate, which results in the distribution of his art collection to numerous public institutions

1940

1946

1945

1947

Purchased house in Ghost Ranch, NM

May, Steiglitz organizes a retrospective at MoMA Georgia Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Keeffe, making it the first exhibition of a woman artist at the museum July 13, Alfred Steiglitz dies

CHAPTER 03 LIFE IN NEW YORK CIT Y

trees in autumn oil on canvas

OSCILL ATION: LIFE, WORK & POETRY

autumn trees — the maple oil on canvas

CHAPTER 03 LIFE IN NEW YORK CIT Y

04 Later years in new Mexico Shortly after O’Keeffe arrived for the summer in New Mexico in 1946, Stieglitz suffered a cerebral thrombosis. She immediately flew to New York to be with him. He died on July 13, 1946. She buried his ashes at Lake George. She spent the next three years mostly in New York settling his estate, and moved permanently to New Mexico in 1949. From 1946 through the 1950s, she made the architectural forms of her Abiquiu house—patio wall and door—subjects in her work. Another distinctive painting of the decade was Ladder to the Moon, 1958. From her first world travels in the late 1950s, O’Keeffe produced an extensive series of paintings of clouds, such as Above the Clouds I, 1962/1963. These were inspired by her views from the windows of airplanes. She loved the colors that the aerial cloudscapes created and used them in her canvases.

O’Keeffe met photographer Todd Webb in the 1940s, and after his move to New Mexico in 1961, he often made photographs of her, as did numerous other important American photographers, who consistently presented O’Keeffe as a “loner, a severe figure and self-made person.” While O’Keeffe was known to have a “prickly personality”, Webb’s photographs portray her with a kind of “quietness and calm” suggesting a relaxed friendship, and revealing new contours of O’Keeffe’s character. In 1962, O’Keeffe was elected to the fifty-member American Academy of Arts and Letters. She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1966. In the fall of 1970, the Whitney Museum of American Art mounted the Georgia O’Keeffe Retrospective Exhibition, the first retrospective exhibition of her work in New York since 1946, the year Stieglitz died. This exhibit did much to revive her public career.

In 1972, O’Keeffe’s eyesight was compromised by macular degeneration, leading to the loss of central vision and leaving her with only peripheral vision. She stopped oil painting without assistance in 1972, but continued working in pencil and charcoal until 1984. Juan Hamilton, a young potter, appeared at her ranch house in 1973 looking for work. She hired him for a few odd jobs and soon employed him fulltime. He became her closest confidant, companion, and business manager until her death. Hamilton taught O’Keeffe to work with clay, and working with assistance, she produced clay pots and a series of works in watercolor. In 1976, she wrote a book about her art and allowed a film to be made about her in 1977. On January 10, 1977, President Gerald R. Ford presented O’Keeffe with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor awarded to American citizens. In 1985, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Ronald Reagan.

O’Keeffe became increasingly frail in her late 90s. She moved to Santa Fe in 1984, where she died on March 6, 1986, at the age of 98. In accordance with her wishes, her body was cremated and her ashes were scattered to the wind at the top of Pedernal Mountain, over her beloved “faraway”.

OSCILL ATION: LIFE, WORK & POETRY

untitled (skull) charcoal on paper

CHAPTER 04 L ATER YEARS IN NEW MEXICO

ram’s head, blue morning glory oil on canvas

OSCILL ATION: LIFE, WORK & POETRY

CHAPTER 04 L ATER YEARS IN NEW MEXICO

I would like to follow you up the long stairway again & become in two cupped hands the boat that would row you back to where your body lies carefully, a flame beside me, and you enter it as easily as breathing in

I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed & that necessary. OSCILL ATION: LIFE, WORK & POETRY

storm cloud, lake george oil on canvas

CHAPTER 04 L ATER YEARS IN NEW MEXICO

head with broken pot oil on canvas

OSCILL ATION: LIFE, WORK & POETRY

LEGACY Following O’Keeffe’s death, her family contested her will because codicils made to it in the 1980s had left all of her estate to Hamilton. The case was ultimately settled out of court in July 1987. The case became famous as a precedent in estate planning. A substantial part of her estate’s assets were transferred to the Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation, which dissolved in 2006, leaving these assets to the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, established in Santa Fe in 1997 to perpetuate O’Keeffe’s artistic legacy. These assets included a large body of her work, photographs, archival materials, and her Abiquiu house, library, and property. The Georgia O’Keeffe Home and Studio in Abiquiu was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1998 and is now owned by the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum.

In 2006, a fossilized species of archosaur was named after O’Keeffe. Blocks originally quarried in 1947 and 1948 near O’Keeffe’s home at Ghost Ranch were opened fifty years after being collected. The fossil strongly resembles ornithomimid dinosaurs, but are actually more closely related to crocodiles. The specimen was named Effigia okeeffeae (“O’Keeffe’s Ghost”) in January 2006, “in honor of Georgia O’Keeffe for her numerous paintings of the badlands at Ghost Ranch and her interest in the Coelophysis Quarry when it was discovered”. An exhibit of O’Keeffe’s works at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which emphasizes her lesser-known abstract works, was on view from May 2010. On 20 November 2014 the 1932 painting Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 sold for $44,405,000, more than three times the previous world auction record for any female artist.

In 1991, the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) aired the American Playhouse production A Marriage: Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz, starring Jane Alexander as Georgia O’Keeffe and Christopher Plummer as Alfred Stieglitz. Lifetime Television produced a biopic of Georgia O’Keeffe premiering on September 19, 2009, starring Joan Allen as O’Keeffe, Jeremy Irons as Alfred Stieglitz, Henry Simmons as Jean Toomer, Ed Begley, Jr. as Stieglitz’s brother Lee, and Tyne Daly as Mabel Dodge Luhan.

CHAPTER 04 L ATER YEARS IN NEW MEXICO

In 1996, the U.S. Postal Service issued a 32 cent stamp honoring O’Keeffe.

July, O’Keeffe helps organize Georgia O’Keeffe: Forty Years of Her Art, the retrospective that opens in October at the Worcester (Mass.) Art Museum Late October-November, O’Keeffe makes second trip to Asia

O’Keeffe permanently relocates to New Mexico

Completes From the Plains II based on her memories of the High Plains in TX

1951

1949

1959

1954

1961

1960

Brother Francis dies January–April, travels via San Francisco and Honolulu to Southeast Asia, the Far East, India, the Middle East, and Italy

February–March, O’Keeffe travels to Mexico for six weeks with Spud Johnson, Elliott Porter, and Porter’s wife, Aline; Trip includes drive to Yucatán with Rose and Miguel Covarrubias and meets Diego Rivera and Frieda Kahlo

Sister Ida dies Spring, helps organize and install what will be her last exhibition at The Downtown Gallery, Georgia O’Keeffe: Recent Paintings and Drawings, which opens in early April

OSCILL ATION: LIFE, WORK & POETRY

69 Early in year, loses central vision and retains only peripheral sight

Attends opening of the TX retrospective at the Amon Carter Museum During year, completes last unassisted oil painting, though continues to work in oil with assistance until 1977; Works unassisted in watercolor and charcoal until 1978 and in graphite until 1984

1965

1970

1966

1973

1971

1972

Early October, installs retrospective, Georgia O’Keeffe, at the Whitney Museum of American Art November, meets potter-sculptor Juan Hamilton, who becomes her assistant and, later, her close friend and representative

Summer, in garage at Ghost Ranch paints her largest clouds picture

Among other things, Hamilton is a travelling companion and facilitator, making possible completion of several projects, including Viking Press publication, Georgia O’Keeffe (1976) and Perry Miller Adato video, Georgia O’Keeffe (1977)

CHAPTER 04 L ATER YEARS IN NEW MEXICO

mesa and road east oil on canvas

OSCILL ATION: LIFE, WORK & POETRY

mesa and road east II oil on canvas

CHAPTER 04 L ATER YEARS IN NEW MEXICO

Terry Reid Caballero, granddaughter of Ted Reid, finds 28 original Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Keeffe watercolors completed in Canyon 1916 to 1918; the series is called Canyon Suite and sold to Gerald Peters, Peters Gallery for $1 million

Completes her autobiography with Viking Press

Sister Anita Young dies Awarded National Medal of Arts by President Ronald Reagan

1977

1976

1986

1985

1993

1988

Died in NM, March 6, at age 98 at St. Vincentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Hospital, Santa Fe

January, receives Medal of Freedom from President Gerald Ford R. Crosby Kemper purchases 24 of the watercolors from Peters Gallery

OSCILL ATION: LIFE, WORK & POETRY

January 21, Peters agreed to refund $5 million to Kemper

The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum opened in Santa Fe, NM, founded by the Texas couple John and Anne Marion

1994

1998

1997

2006

2000

Her correspondence with Steiglitz was unsealed at the Beinecke Library at Yale University

Kemper gifted the 24 watercolors to the newly opened Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City; Peters donated the remaining 4 works to the Kemper Museum During the publication of O’Keeffe’s catalogue raisonné by Barbara Buhler Lynes, did not include the 28 Canyon Suite based on evidence that the paper did not match the papers used by the in 1916–18 and likely was not obtainable in the U.S. until after 1919

CHAPTER 04 L ATER YEARS IN NEW MEXICO

INDEX a piece of wood.........................................................................................30 oil on canvas, 1942 A Street.. .....................................................................................................36 oil on canvas, 1926 ABSTR AC TION WITH CURVE AND CIRCLE. . ..................................................... 18 CHARCOAL ON PAPER, 1915/16 american artist georgia o’keeffe......................................................... 81 photo by john loengard, 1966 AUTUMN TREES — THE MAPLE....................................................................... 57 OIL ON C ANVAS, 1924 banana flower no. II................................................................................ 47 charcoal on paper, 1934 BL ACK LINES................................................................................................. 19 WATERCOLOR ON PAPER, 1916 black place, grey and pink......................................................................58 oil on canvas, 1949 BLUE BL ACK AND GRE Y.. ................................................................................ 39 OIL ON C ANVAS, 1960

BLUE HILL NO. II .. .......................................................................................... 24 WATERCOLOR on paper, 1916 BLUE LINE.....................................................................................................44 oil on canvas, 1919 BROOKLYN BRIDGE........................................................................................ 54 OIL ON MASONITE, 1949 DR AWING V...................................................................................................38 CHARCOAL ON PAPER, 1959 DR AWING XIII .. ..............................................................................................02 CHARCOAL ON PAPER, 1915 E AST RIVER FROM THE 30TH STORY OF THE SHELTON HOTEL...................... 42 OIL ON C ANVAS, 1928 georgia O’Keeffe....................................................................................... 26 platinum print by Alfred Stieglitz, 1920 georgia O’Keeffe, Hands.......................................................................... 10 Photo by Alfred Stieglitz, 1918 HE AD WITH BROKEN POT..............................................................................66 OIL ON C ANVAS, 1943 jimson weed...........................................................................................74-75 oil on canvas, 1935 MESA AND ROAD E AST.................................................................................. 70 OIL ON C ANVAS, 1952 MESA AND ROAD E AST II. . ............................................................................. 71 OIL ON C ANVAS, 1952 NEW YORK NIGHT.. ........................................................................................ 43 OIL ON C ANVAS, 1928/29 OSCILL ATION: LIFE, WORK & POETRY

NUDE SERIES. . ............................................................................................... 34 WATERCOLOR ON PAPEr, 1917

NUDE SERIES VII........................................................................................... 35 WATERCOLOR ON PAPEr, 1917 ponds in the woods.. ................................................................................29 pastel on paper, 1922 PORTR AIT - W - NO. III.................................................................................. 23 WATERCOLOR ON PAPER, 1917 R AM’S HE AD, BLUE MORNING GLORY............................................................ 62 OIL ON C ANVAS IMAGE, 1938 SMALL POPPY WITH VINE I............................................................................ 14 CHARCOAL ON PAPER, 1927 SMALL POPPY WITH VINE II. . ......................................................................... 15 CHARCOAL ON PAPER, 1927 STORM CLOUD, L AKE GEORGE. . ..................................................................... 65 OIL ON C ANVAS, 1923 Summer days. . ............................................................................................. 63 oil on canvas, 1936 TREES IN AUTUMN........................................................................................56 OIL ON C ANVAS, 1920/21 UNTITLED (ABSTR AC TION/PORTR AIT OF PAUL STR AND).. ............................. 22 WATERCOLOR ON PAPER, 1917 UNTITLED (CIT Y NIGHT)................................................................................ 51 OIL ON C ANVAS, 1970 UNTITLED (SKULL)........................................................................................ 61 CHARCOAL ON PAPER, 1934 white bird of paradise . . ........................................................................... 76 oil on canvas, 1939 Variation on the Word Sleep............................................ 16, 17, 28, 64, 81 From Selected Poems II: 1976-1986 by Margaret Atwood

INDEX

I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed & that necessary.

OSCILLATION: LIFE, WORK & POETRY Book Design and Information Design by Richard Jennings Typefaces: Zine Sans Display OT and Zine Serif Display OT Created in Adobe InDesign and Adobe Photoshop Dust jacket, bound, and printed by Blurb.com on ProLine Uncoated 100lb (148 GSM)

OSCILLATION : LIFE, WORK & POETRY I have always been inspired by both O’Keeffe’s and Atwood’s bodies of work. Every time I think about Georgia O’Keeffe and her work I feel like I am taking in a deep breath of fresh air. I feel the same about the poetry of Margaret Atwood. This book is my way of paying homage to these pivotal artists.