Le Finestre di Abiquiu:Sguardi su un Nuovo Trascendentalismo americano nell’opera di Georgia O’Keeffe

GSD 01-02 Ottobre 2013 Cristiana Pagliarusco

Università degli Studi di Milano Università degli Studi di Trento

“I wish people were all trees and I think I could enjoy them then.”

G.O’K

The Lawrence Tree, 1929. Oil on canvas, 30x 40.

New Mexico

New York

O’Keeffe

Wisconsin, Virginia, Texas,

South Carolina

The Space of

Re-discovery

The House

of Fame

The

Educational

Ground

The

Artist’s

(Door)way

Ralph

Waldo

Emerson

Henry

David

Thoreau

Walt

Whitman

Lewis MumfordAmerican historian, sociologist, art and literary critic

(1895- 1990)

O’keeffe’s painting « possesses that mysterious force,

that hold upon the hidden soul

which distinguishes important communications

from the casual reports of the eye».

New Republic, 1927

Wisconsin, Virginia, Texas and South Carolina:

The Educational Ground

Georgia O’Keeffe’s home and birthplace, in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin

“I was sent away from the

farm – the idea of Sun

Prairie meant nothing to

me – I was sent away

from home.”

Georgia O’Keeffe

Alon Bement

Art Teacher at Columbia University

1912

‘He had an idea that interested me.

[…]

- The idea of filling a space in a beautiful way.

Where you have the windows and door in a house.

How you adddress a letter and put on a stamp.

What shoes you choose and how you comb your hair.’

Georgia O’Keeffe

Starlight Night, 1917. Watercolor, 9 x 12.

Georgia O’Keeffe

1915

________________________________________

‘I decided to start anew –

to strip away what I had been taught –

to accept as true my own thinking.

This was one of my best times of my life. […]

I was alone and singularly free, working into my

own, unknown – no one to satisfy but myself.’

Special n°2, 1915

Drawing XIII, 1915

[…]

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,

Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,

Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,

Strong and content I travel the open road.

[…]

Have the past struggles succeeded?

What has succeeded? yourself? your nation? Nature?

Now understand me well—it is provided in the essence of things

that from any fruition of success, no matter what, shall come

forth something to make a greater struggle necessary. […]

Walt Whitman

Song of the Open Road

New York and Lake George:

The House of Fame

Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz:a 30-year-long relationship (1916-1946)

N°17 Special, 1919

I grew up pretty much as everybody else grows up and one

day seven years ago found myself saying to myself –

I can't live where I want to –

I can't go where I want to go –

I can't do what I want to –

I can't even say what I want to... School and Things that

painters have taught me even keep me from painting as I

want to. I decided I was a very stupid fool not to at least

paint as I wanted to.’

Letter to Alfred Stieglitz, 1917

Two Calla Lilies on Pink, 1928. Oil on canvas, 40 x 30.

In the studio of Stieglitz’s niece in New York

«I had never lived up so high before and was so excited that I began talking about

trying to paint New York. Of course, I was told it was an impossible idea – even the

men hadn’t done too well with it . […] The next year Stieglitz had a small corner

room at the Andreson Galleries.

There were three large windows.

As you entered you saw my first New York between two windows.

[…] My large New York was sold the first afternoon.»

1919-1926

30th floor:

O’Keeffe and Stieglitz

lived here for 12 years

(1925-1937)

The Shelton was conceived

as an all-men hotel when it

opened in 1924.

‘To create one's own world, in any of the arts, takes courage’Georgia O’Keeffe

1887-1986

Pink Dish and Green Leaves, 1928. Oil on canvas, 31 x 40.

New York with Moon, 1925. Oil on canvas, 48 x 30.

The Shelton with Sunspots, 1926. Oil on canvas, 49 x 31.

Radiator Building –Night, New York, 1927. Oil on canvas, 48 x 30.

City Night, 1926. Oil on canvas, 48 x 30.

Farmhouse Window and Door, 1929. Oil on canvas, 40 x 30.

The Shanty

The Shanty, 1922. Oil on canvas, 20 x 27.

Barn with Snow, 1934. Oil on canvas, 16 x 28.

Lake George Barn, 1926 . Oil on canvas, 21 x 32.

New Mexico:

The Space of Re-discovery

“L’arte deve germogliare da un terreno particolare e brillare dello spirito del

luogo.” D.H.Lawrence

“One cannot be an American by going about saying that one is an

American. It is necessary to feel America, like America, love

America and then work.”

Georgia O’Keeffe

“Where I was born and where and how I have lived is

unimportant. It is what I have done with where I have been that

should be of interest.[…]

Cebolla Church, 1945. Oil on canvas, 20 x 36

O’Keeffe in her Model A Ford at Black Place,

“I can’t be any saint,

I’d rather be an earthen

goddess.”

Georgia O’Keeffe

Pedernal, 1941. Oil on canvas, 19 x 30.

“It’s my private mountain.

It belongs to me.

God told me if I painted it

enough, I could have it.”

Georgia O’Keeffe

Door to Patio, Abiquiu’s House, Todd Webb, 1981

Door through Window, 1956. Oil on canvas.

“I found I could say things with color and

shapes that I couldn’t say any other way –

things I had no words for.”

Georgia O’Keeffe

The Flagpole with White House, 1959. Oil on canvas, 48 x 30.

The Flagpole, 1923. Oil on canvas, 35 x 18.

A Black Bird with Snow-Covered Red Hills, 1946. Oil on canvas, 36 x 48.

From the kitchen window at Ghost Ranch

‘No ideas, but in things’

W.C.Williams

From the kitchen window at Ghost Ranch

Black Bird Series (in the Patio IX), 1950. Oil on canvas, 30 x 40.

“How can you tell the truth

about things? – that is, how

can you find a language so close

to the world that the world

can be represented and

understood in it?”

W.C.Williams

In the Patio IV, 1948. Oil on canvas, 14 x 30

In the Patio IV, 1946. Oil on paper, 30 x 24

Patio with Black Door, 1955. Oil on canvas, 40 x 30

White Patio with Red Door, 1960. Oil on canvas, 48 x 84.

Sky Above Clouds, IV, 1965. –Oil on canvas, 96 x 288

Abiquiu, Studio, New Mexico

Men and women who present us with“ The

breaking of ties with family, home, class, country,

and traditional beliefs as necessary stages in the

achievement of spiritual and intellectual freedom,

invite us to share the larger transcendental or

private systems of order and value which they

have adopted and invented”

Edward Said

Georgia O’Keeffe’s portraits by John Loengard,

Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, 1967

“Making your unknown known is the important thing -

and keeping the unknown always beyond you –

catching - crystalizing your simpler clearer vision of life -

only to see it turn stale compared to what you vaguely

feel ahead – that you must always keep working to

grasp.”

Georgia O’Keeffe

Pelvis III, 1944. oil on canvas, 48 x 40.