Georgia O'Keeffe
Series 1, No. 4, 1918
oil on canvas
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Georgia O’Keeffe: Nature and
Abstraction presents a remarkable survey of the work of Georgia
O’Keeffe, one of the legendary figures of twentieth-century art. The
exhibition is comprised of a stunning selection of paintings that
span the entirety of O’Keeffe’s career from 1918 to 1977.
This presentation is the first solo exhibition of O’Keeffe’s work in
Canada in more than fifty years. Through her landscape paintings and
flower studies, the exhibition focuses on the central theme of
O’Keeffe’s art — transforming nature into abstraction. This
important grouping of paintings offers a distinct look at her
consistent determination to re-interpret recognizable objects
through painted abstractions that express the essential elements of
form, colour and allusion. The dominant influence on O’Keeffe’s work
in the 1930s and 1940s was the landscape of New Mexico, which she
first visited in 1929 and where she spent almost every summer for
the following 20 years, eventually settling there in 1949.
During her long and prolific career, O’Keeffe established herself as
a major figure in American art, first as a member of the “Alfred
Stieglitz Circle” of modern artists in New York including Arthur
Dove, Marsden Hartley and John Marin. Although O’Keeffe’s work is
aligned with that of some of the major figures of twentieth century
Modernism —both European and American—such as Claude Monet, Pablo
Picasso and Ellsworth Kelly, she is renowned for steadfastly
remaining true to her own unique vision amid the many shifting
artistic trends of the time. Since her death in 1986, her
importance, eminence and influence have continued to grow,
establishing O’Keeffe as an artist of great significance.
The exhibition also includes an important selection of photographs
of O’Keeffe taken early in her life by her husband, Alfred Stieglitz,
and images taken by Todd Webb of O’Keeffe later in life. This
extraordinary presentation of paintings and photographs offers a
rare opportunity to view the life and work of one of America’s
foremost artists. The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully
illustrated book co-published by Skira, the Irish Museum of Modern
Art and the Vancouver Art Gallery, with essays by Yvonne Scott,
Achille Bonito Oliva and Richard D. Marshall.
Co-organized by the
Irish Museum of Modern Art and the Vancouver Art Gallery and
curated by Richard D. Marshall.
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