The Musée de Grenoble is presenting the first comprehensive monograph in France dedicated to American painter Georgia O'Keeffe, showcasing the career of one of America's most iconic artists. Running until February 7, 2016, the exhibition traces O'Keeffe's artistic journey from her early works in New York through her permanent move to New Mexico in 1949, highlighting how modern photography profoundly influenced her distinctive style.
The exhibition creates a unique dialogue between O'Keeffe's paintings and photographs by her photographer friends, featuring a collection of eighty works drawn from fifteen international museums. This innovative approach demonstrates how O'Keeffe's art was deeply intertwined with the photographic vision of her contemporaries, particularly through her relationship with photographer Alfred Stieglitz and the influential circle of artists surrounding him.
Georgia O'Keeffe holds a special position in American art history, known for her immediately recognizable paintings that possess a distinctive visual impact. Her work captivates viewers through the sensuality of her colors and the clarity of her motifs, which remain powerfully embedded in memory. The strength of her images lies in their ability to question perception through enigmatic forms that often waver between abstraction and figuration, creating a sense of mystery and depth.
In the 1920s, O'Keeffe gained recognition through her paintings of flowers and buildings, which were imbued with photographic realism. She absorbed the precisionist aesthetics of painters in the Stieglitz circle, including Arthur Dove, John Marin, Charles Demuth, and Marsden Hartley. This influence helped her develop a unique formal vocabulary that was deeply shaped by her life in the New Mexico desert, where she found endless inspiration in the southwestern landscape.
By the 1960s, O'Keeffe had evolved into creating abstract compositions in spiritual communion with her southwestern environment. These later works, characterized by their formal purity and tonal sensuality, echoed the artistic achievements of renowned artists such as Mark Rothko, Ellsworth Kelly, and Agnes Martin, demonstrating her continued relevance in the contemporary art world.
Born in 1887 in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, O'Keeffe developed her personal artistic vision at a very early age. Her early work was inspired by the endless plains of Texas and marked by the flowing lines characteristic of Art Nouveau. After meeting photographer Alfred Stieglitz, a champion of avant-garde movements, she moved to New York in 1918 and devoted herself entirely to her artistic practice.
As Stieglitz's muse and later his wife in 1924, O'Keeffe discovered the European avant-garde through the famous 291 Gallery and became an integral part of the Stieglitz circle. Her powerful individualistic personality shaped a unique body of work that found its primary sources in nature. Positioned somewhere between abstraction and figuration, her art developed in series based on a resolutely modernist approach, with compositions emerging from careful observation of the natural world.
O'Keeffe's subjects evolved with her geographic experiences, beginning with the expansive skies of Texas, the mountains of Lake George, the towering buildings of New York, and detailed studies of flowers. In 1929, she made the pivotal decision to spend her summers in Santa Fe, before permanently relocating to New Mexico in 1949. This move marked a new chapter in her artistic development as she lived in close communion with nature, embracing the solitude of wide open spaces and taking long drives through the desert landscape.
This southwestern experience introduced new subjects into her work, including vernacular architecture, dramatic canyons, bleached bones, expansive skies, and winding rivers. These elements became central themes that would define her mature artistic style and cement her reputation as one of America's most important painters.
Throughout her career, O'Keeffe maintained close attention to developments in modern photography, and the photographic vision she adopted partly explains the remarkable strength and impact of her painted images. The exhibition showcases this connection by featuring works by seven photographers who both influenced her painted work and were influenced by her in return: Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, Ansel Adams, Eliot Porter, and Todd Webb.
Beyond Stieglitz's famous photographs that first captured the artist's beauty and essence, these photographers shared with O'Keeffe not only common artistic motifs but also favorite locations including New York and New Mexico. These shared experiences and places helped forge their respective ways of looking at and interpreting the world around them.
The exhibition, curated by Guy Tosatto and Sophie Bernard, is located at the Musée de Grenoble at 5, place Lavalette, 38000 Grenoble. The museum is open daily except Tuesdays from 10:00 AM to 6:30 PM, and is closed on January 1st, May 1st, and December 25th. This comprehensive presentation offers visitors a unique opportunity to understand how photography and painting intersected in the work of one of America's most celebrated artists.
