Arts
"Simple Beauty" on Display at Shelburne Museum
"Simple Beauty" on Display at Shelburne Farms
Georgia O’Keefe Paintings Shown First Time in Vermont
by Donna Iverson
“Simple Beauty,” the first Vermont exhibition of Georgia O’Keefe’s paintings, including several of the flower portraits for which the artist is so well known, opened in June at the Shelburne Museum.
This is a woman who transformed petunias, irises and hollyhocks into masterpieces. The exhibit offers the opportunity to visually follow her artistic development. It is immediately obvious that O’Keefe began her art career floundering with the medium. However, when she hits her stride in her late 20s, there is a painterly leap from mediocre to sublime. Inspiration for any artist who is struggling.
Born in November of 1887, O’Keefe grew up as the oldest daughter of Ida and Francis O’Keefe, dairy farmers in rural Wisconsin. It was not a happy childhood. Her mother showed her little affection and while she was her father’s favorite child, there are credible reports that he sexually abused her. She turned to art, painting clouds and flowers. From the start, it was evident that she possessed talent.
When she was only 14 years old, she began her years of studying art in a number of schools, including the Art Institute of Chicago. By the time she was 20 years old, she was working as a commercial artist in Chicago, where she designed the logo for Little Dutch Girl cleanser. It became a cultural icon. She moved to New York City a few years later and began experimenting with abstracting the shapes of nature, especially flowers, and infusing them with luminous purples, pinks, corals and mauve. There was no turning back. From then on, anyone could identify an O’Keefe painting with just a glance.
While in New York, she met photographer Alfred Stieglitz and began modeling for him. The nude photographs of O’Keefe from this time memorialized her eccentric and unique physical beauty. She would marry Stieglitz, but most biographers contend that the marriage was more of a business relationship than a love match.
Stieglitz was old enough to be O’Keeffe’s father and while each seemed to stimulate each others’ creativity, it was a stormy relationship at best, with lots of violent arguments. Stieglitz needed her undivided attention while O’Keefe liked nothing better than solitude and working in her studio, naked.
It was evident early on that O’Keefe preferred the company of women both as friends and lovers. Her name was romantically linked with novelist Margery Latimer and her friend Blanche Matthias. Also, artist Rebecca Strand, married to photographer Paul Strand, was O’Keefe’s lover for many years. Stieglitz was also involved in a number of extra-marital affairs, including one with Rebecca Strand.
On Stieglitz’s death in 1946, O’Keefe moved to Santa Fe where she lived for the rest of her long life. There she would turn her focus to sun-bleached animal bones, one of which displayed at the Shelburne exhibition. Although she gradually lost her sight, O’Keefe kept painting and lived to be 98 years old.
The museum exhibit has captured the periods of O’Keefe’s work and includes many paintings that show a range of subject matter, all drawn from nature. The exhibit, which includes 26 paintings on loan from collections around the country, runs through October 31st. Admission is $18 for adults, $9 for children, and half-price for Vermont residents.