Georgia O'Keeffe Simply Painting What She Saw
LiveAuctionTalk.com: by Rosemary O’Connor McKittrick
Photo courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries.
In an era when it wasn’t possible for a woman to earn a living as a painter legendary artist Georgia O’Keeffe decided to be an artist. In 1918 collectors also had mixed feelings about modern art and women were not taken seriously as artists. It was okay for them to teach art but not be an artist. Georgia had a different point of view.
She excelled at painting detailed and tenderly colored flowers, so detailed they almost looked like photographs. She was a role model for other female artists giving them the courage to step up and claim their artistry.
“When I got to New Mexico that was mine. As soon as I saw it that was my country. I’d never seen anything like it before, but it fitted to me exactly. It’s something that’s in the air, it’s different.”
“Camille Claudel the infuriating film about the great French sculptress who was also Rodin’s mistress, made me realize that Georgia O’Keeffe was the first woman artist I was introduced to as a young woman who didn’t go mad, and kill herself, like Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, and Diane Arbus,” said photographer Meridel Rubenstein.
One critic called Georgia’s flowers a bee’s-eye view because they were so up close and intimate almost as if the viewer crawled inside for a firsthand view. From petunias and rare black irises to bleached animal bones, seashells, and sun-baked adobe churches, Georgia’s vision captured the essence of things. She rarely painted people or animals.
Rumor has it she could smell the animal bones she stumbled upon in the sand as she hiked through the New Mexico desert with palette and paintbrush in hand.
“I simply paint what I see,” she said.
Her eye caught nuances. Vibrant, clear color and natural forms spoke to her. She paid special attention to her painting materials and bought the best brushes and paint.
“This woman who…because she dares to paint as she feels, has become not only one of the most magical artists of our time but one of the most stimulatingly powerful,” said author Elizabeth Montgomery.
Georgia especially loved the New Mexico mountains and spent years painting there. She first visited New Mexico in 1917 drawn by the stark beauty, architecture and landscape. By 1929 she was in New Mexico part of almost every year, mostly around Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch.
“When I got to New Mexico that was mine. As soon as I saw it that was my country. I'd never seen anything like it before, but it fitted to me exactly. It's something that's in the air, it's different,” she said.
Georgia had been famous for years but celebrity and fame meant little to her. While traveling in France she was asked if she wanted to meet Picasso.
“I don’t speak French and he doesn’t speak English. What would be the sense of meeting him if
we couldn’t speak?” she asked.
Georgia was one of the most important artists of the 20th century and a major leader in American Modernism. Her vision of the American West hangs in museum collections worldwide.
On October 20, 2022, Swann Auction Galleries featured a selection of celebrated artists in its Fine Photographs sale.
Here are some current values.
Les Pains de Picasso; silver print; Robert Doisneau; 11 1/8 inches by 9 3/4 inches; signed; 1952; printed 1980; $3,250.
Andy Warhol; self-portrait in a photo booth; silver print; the image measuring 1 7/8 inches by 1 1/2 inches; Polaroid Polacolor; 1983; $3,500.
Claude Monet; 9 ¼ inches by 11 3/4 with Musée Marmottan credit stamp and date; 1920s; printed 1973; $3,500.
Henri Matisse, France; silver print; Henri Cartier-Bresson; 9 3/8 inches by 14 1/4 inches; signed 1944; printed 1970s; $8,125.
Georgia O'Keeffe; silver print, Yousuf Karsh image; 23 7/8 inches by 19 inches signed; 9/100; 1956; printed 1980s; $9,100.
