Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz - lecture notes
Today in class we listened to a lecture on Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. Here are the notes I constructed during the lecture, and below, I am boing to build on that.
Starting with Alfted Stieglitz. Stieglitz was born in 1864 in the United States. He studied engineering in Germany, but in 1880 he returned to the United States, where found his passion for photography.
The first photograph I decided to look at is called "Sun Rays"
Stieglitz made this photograph of his lover Paula, a long time before he met Georgia O'Keeffe. "In contrast to the more atmospheric, seemingly timeless images he was making at the time, such as The Net Mender, Sun Rays is sharp and crisp, as well as modern in its subject matter—the photographs on the wall include a small studio portrait of Stieglitz himself."(Art Institute Chicago, n.d.). Below I am placing "The Net Mender" for the comparison of the two photographs.
It is once again, a picture where the focus is on the person, however it is soft and calm. Looking at both of those photographs in comparison, 'Sun Rays' is definitely sharper and it looks more serious. The Net Mender is an image in sepia colors and it looks very peaceful. All viewer's attention goes to the woman presented, there is nothing to take away from the focus. However, in Sun Rays there are many elements that make the lady in the chair disappear. I think it is really interesting to compare those two works, because they both present a woman sitting and doing something, therefore content-wise they are similar.
This photograph above shows Stieglitz approach to photography. He was interested in realism and capturing life. There are no models in the picture and it is strictly showing a situation in everyday life. I think this is what makes the piece interesting and real for the viewer. It also gives a good idea, in which direction Stieglitz decided to go in with his art. It was taken some time after the two works I had a chance to discuss earlier and the change in Stieglitz work is visible. This image is less calm and more lively, dynamic than the two pictures before. Here the change in the photographic approach is very visible.
Stieglitz wanted to photograph the real and the modern, he wanted to focus on life and showing its realness in his photographs.
In 1916, Stieglitz met Georgia O'Keeffe, Stieglitz was 52 at the time and O'Keeffe was only 28. They got married in 1924, even though there was a big age gap between them.
Georgia O'Keeffe was a painter and she created innovative impressionist images. Here is an example of sn O'Keeffe's work:
This painting is really dark, not only coloristically. It is also portraying a dead animal, therefore I sense darkness. The painting is in realistic colors and it is showing a real situation, real life. This argues a little bit with O'Keeffe's later works, but I am going to get to that in the later part of this post.
O'Keeffe shifted towards oil paintings around 1920 and then she started paintings flowers for which she is famous. Here are some of her flower paintings:
O'Keeffe is really famous for her flower paintings, where flowers are scaled up, therefore the viewer can concentrate on the detail in the flowers that is truly flawless. Her flower paintings are magical and dream-like. She portrayed nature in the most beautiful way. There were many controversies around those paintings, sexualizing them. O'Keeffe responded many times that the flowers are only flowers and there is not a second meaning and that the paintings are not sexual in any way. Her words did not stop people from continuing spreading those controversies. I think this is a perfect example of general sexualization of women, not only in the art industry, but everywhere. People see what they want to see and if some see women only as sexual objects, they would link everything created by them to that. I personally think those paintings are insanely beautiful, they show how perfectly imperfect is nature and and how beautifully it can be portrayed. Also I really like the contrast in both of those paintings, in the top one, it is a color contrast, how purple is contrasting with yellow and in the bottom painting it would be black and white contrast. It shows how wisely those colors were chosen.
I think what is interesting to think about is that O'Keeffe was painting those flawless creations of nature, when her husband liked to focus on real, imperfect life. These two show two exactly opposite approaches to art and creating. It is interesting because it really shows that opposites attract, however not exactly opposites, since both were artists.
Stieglitz died in 1946 and that is when O'Keeffe decided to move permanently to New Mexico. New Mexico is a state in south west of the United States. At first she stayed on a 21 000 acre dude ranch where she started creating art inspired by what was around her.
Even before Stieglitz died, O'Keeffe started spending a lot of time in New Mexico and that definitely affected her art.
This is a completely new approach compared to all the flowers and the dream-like method O'Keeffe was painting in. It seems like her time in New Mexico changed her perspective and inspired her to try painting in a different way. To me, it looks a little bit as if she felt limited when with Stieglitz, but when she had some time alone, she started discovering completely new grounds. It is very interesting at it definitely shows that a couple of artists can work well together but when they are by themselves they get even better and they spread their wings wider. I really like how O'Keeffe painted those beautiful NM grounds and landscapes, because her paintings became more real, even if the approach is still sort of a dream-like.
O'Keeffe died at the age of 98 in 1986.
Reference List:
Art Institute Chicago (n.d.) Sun Rays—Paula, Berlin. Available at: https://www.artic.edu/artworks/66284/sun-rays-paula-berlin (Accessed: 04/02/2021).
Some of Stieglitz's earlier photographs were very 'painterly' they almost look like classical works (the Net Mender for instance). Excellent set of notes, and good to see the inclusion of what we discussed in the session regarding O'Keefe's reaction to the sexualisation of her work.
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