Georgia O’Keeffe: Abstraction
Sept 17, 2009–Jan 17, 2010
Georgia O’Keeffe, Series I—No. 3, 1918. Oil on board, 20 × 16 in. (50.8 × 40.6 cm). Milwaukee Art Museum; gift of Jane Bradley Pettit Foundation and The Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation M1997.192.
© Milwaukee Art Museum. Photograph by Larry Sanders
Although Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986) has long been celebrated as a central figure in twentieth-century art, the abstract works she created throughout her career have remained overlooked by critics and the public in favor of her representational subjects. In 1915, O'Keeffe leaped into abstraction with a group of charcoal drawings that were among the most radical creations produced in the United States at that time. In these and subsequent abstractions, O’Keeffe sought to transcribe her ineffable thoughts and emotions. While her output of abstract work declined after 1930, she returned to abstraction in the mid-1940s with a new vocabulary that provided a precedent for a younger generation of abstractionists. By devoting itself to this largely unexplored area of her work, Georgia O’Keeffe: Abstraction is an overdue acknowledgment of her place as one of America’s first abstract artists.
The exhibition includes more than 125 paintings, drawings, watercolors, and sculptures by O'Keeffe as well as selected examples of Alfred Stieglitz’s famous photographic portrait series of O’Keeffe. The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with essays by the organizers, excerpts from the recently unsealed Stieglitz-O’Keeffe correspondence, and a contextual chronology of O'Keeffe's art and life.
The curatorial team, led by Whitney curator Barbara Haskell, includes Barbara Buhler Lynes, curator of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum and the Emily Fisher Landau Director of the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Research Center; Bruce Robertson, professor of the history of art and architecture at the University of California, Santa Barbara; Elizabeth Hutton Turner, professor and vice provost for the arts at the University of Virginia and guest curator at the Phillips Collection; and Sasha Nicholas, Whitney curatorial assistant. Georgia O’Keeffe: Abstraction travels to The Phillips Collection, Washington DC, February 6–May 9, 2010, and to the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe, May 28–September 10, 2010.
The national presentation of the exhibition is proudly supported by the Henry Luce Foundation.
Sponsor of opening events for the Whitney’s presentation
Significant support for the Whitney’s presentation is provided by the Daniel and Pamella DeVos Foundation, The Shen Family Foundation, Jody and John Arnhold, the Karen and Kevin Kennedy Foundation, and Barney A. Ebsworth.
Official Beauty Sponsor
Additional support is provided by The Cowles Charitable Trust, Judy and Stanley Katz, Michelle and Lawrence Lasser, The Karen and Paul Levy Family Foundation, Harvey-Ann and Harvey M. Ross, The Donald and Barbara Zucker Family Foundation, The Eugene McDermott Foundation, Johanna and Leslie Garfield, Marica and Jan Vilcek, and several anonymous donors.
Media partner Thirteen/WNET
Artworks
Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986), Early Abstraction, 1915. Charcoal on paper, 24 × 18 5/8 in. (61 × 47.3 cm). Milwaukee Art Museum; gift of Jane Bradley Pettit Foundation and The Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation M1997.189. © Milwaukee Art Museum. Photograph by Malcolm Varon.
Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986), Untitled (Abstraction/Portrait of Paul Strand), 1917. Watercolor on paper, 12 × 8 7/8 in. (30.5 × 22.5 cm). Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe, New Mexico; gift of The Burnett Foundation. © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum/Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York
Georgia O’Keeffe, Blue Flower, 1918. Pastel on paper mounted on cardboard, 20 × 16 in. (50.8 × 40.6 cm). Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe, New Mexico; gift of The Burnett Foundation. © Private collection
Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986), Music, Pink and Blue No. 2, 1918. Oil on canvas, 35 × 29 1/8 in. (88.9 × 74 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of Emily Fisher Landau in honor of Tom Armstrong 91.90. © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum/Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photograph by Sheldan C. Collins
Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986), Series I—No. I, 1918. Oil on composition board, 19 3/4 × 16 in. (50.2 × 40.6 cm). Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas; purchase with assistance from the Anne Burnett Tandy Accessions Fund 1995.8. © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum/Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York
Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986), Series I—No. 3, 1918. Oil on board, 20 × 16 in. (50.8 × 40.6 cm). Milwaukee Art Museum; gift of Jane Bradley Pettit Foundation and The Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation M1997.192. © Milwaukee Art Museum. Photograph by Larry Sanders
Georgia O’Keeffe (1886–1987), Series I, No. 4, 1918. Oil on canvas, 20 × 16 in. (50.8 × 40.6 cm). Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich; gift of The Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation. © Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus
Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986), Series I, No. 8, 1919. Oil on canvas, 20 × 16 in. (50.8 × 40.6 cm). Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich; gift of The Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation. © Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus
Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986), Black Spot, No. 2, 1919. Oil on canvas, 24 × 16 in. (61 × 40.6 cm). Collection of Robert and Soledad Hurst. © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum/Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York
Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986), Red & Orange Streak, 1919. Oil on canvas, 27 × 23 in. (68.6 × 58.4 cm). Philadelphia Museum of Art; bequest of Georgia O’Keeffe for the Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1987. Photograph by the Philadelphia Museum of Art
Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986), Spring, 1922. Oil on canvas, 35 1/2 × 30 3/8 in. (90.2 × 77.2 cm). The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York; bequest of Mrs. Arthur Schwab (Edna Bryner, class of 1907). © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum/Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York
Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986), Red, Yellow and Black Streak, 1924. Oil on canvas, 39 3/8 × 31 3/4 in. (100 × 80.6 cm). Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum/Artist Rights Society(ARS), New York. Photography by CNAC/MNAM/Dist. Réunion des Musées Nationaux/ Art Resource, NY
Georgia O’Keeffe, Flower Abstraction, 1924. Oil on canvas, 48 × 30 in. (121.9 × 76.2 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; 50th Anniversary Gift of Sandra Payson 85.47. © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum/Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York
Georgia O’Keeffe, Pink Tulip, 1925. Oil on canvas, 31 3/4 × 12 in. (80.6 × 30.5 cm). Collection of Emily Fisher Landau © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum/Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York
Events
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Georgia O’Keeffe, Series I—No. 3, 1918. Oil on board, 20 × 16 in. (50.8 × 40.6 cm). Milwaukee Art Museum; gift of Jane Bradley Pettit Foundation and The Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation M1997.192.
© Milwaukee Art Museum. Photograph by Larry Sanders
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In the News
Audio: Curator Barbara Haskell discusses Georgia O’Keeffe: Abstraction
—The Leonard Lopate Show, WNYC
“The Best Museum Shows of 2009”
—The New Yorker
“The Whitney’s colorful show puts aside the Georgia O’Keeffe we know best—the Gray Lady of New Mexico—to retrieve an O’Keeffe we ought to know better, the young woman who went fearlessly down the road of entirely abstract art”
—Time, Top Ten Art Exhibitions of 2009
“The Whitney Museum’s revelatory survey of the work that earned O’Keeffe such derision, the evocative, more-or-less abstract art she made starting in 1915—phenomenally early for an American artist—should reopen eyes to an undeniable fact: O’Keeffe produced some of the most original and ambitious art in the twentieth century.”
—New York
“a vivid and surprisingly surprising show”
—The New York Times
“this show reveals a very different side to the famous artist we thought we always knew.”
—Time Out New York
“scrapes away O’Keeffe’s barnacled legend as the Gray Lady of New Mexico to recall the young woman who at the dawn of abstraction made a fearless leap into the unknown.”
—Time
Video: “Georgia O’Keeffe Wows Once Again At The Whitney”
—NY1
“O’Keeffe Paints Hot Pink Kiss, Pioneers American Abstract Art”
—Bloomberg News
“See it for its sensuality, the rapture all around us.”
—The New York Post
Slideshow: The O’Keeffe/Stieglitz Letters
—The Daily Beast
“Abstraction Invades Manhattan”
—Thirteen/Sunday Arts Blog
“More Than Just Flowers”
—Forbes
“Deflowered: A Fresh Look at O’Keeffe”
—The Bergen Record
“Sasha Nicholas Makes Sense of Georgia O’Keeffe”
—The Huffington Post
“The Week Ahead”
—The New York Times
“Painting a New Picture of Georgia O’Keeffe”
—The Wall Street Journal
“The Big Fall Shows”
—Time Out New York
“Jerry Saltz’s Want-to-Sees this Fall”
—New York
“Fall’s Must-See Art Shows”
—The Daily Beast