Denver Art Museum
July 3 through November 6, 2022
The Denver Art Museum (DAM) will bring a trove of newly identified photographs by groundbreaking artist Georgia O’Keeffe to Colorado in 2022 in an exhibition organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) with the collaboration of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe.
Georgia O'Keeffe, Jimsonweed (Datura stramonium), 1964–68, black-and-white Polaroid, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe. © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum.
Georgia O’Keeffe, Photographer, reveals a new aspect of the Modernist artist’s career through nearly 100 photographs. This exhibition is the culmination of three years of research and analysis by Lisa Volpe, Associate Curator of Photography at MFAH. Volpe visited numerous collections to identify more than 400 images by O’Keeffe. The presentation will be on view at the DAM from July 3 through November 6, 2022, in the Hamilton Building’s Gallagher Family Gallery on level 1. The exhibition will be included in general admission, which is free for members and all visitors 18 and under every day, thanks to the Free for Kids program at the DAM, supported by Scott Reiman and BELLCO.
“Georgia O’Keeffe has been historically and globally recognized for her incredible depictions of flowers, stark landscapes of the American southwest and New York skyscrapers, but less known for the fascinating photographic practice that she quietly and consistently honed,” said Christoph Heinrich, Frederick and Jan Mayer Director of the DAM. “We are so pleased to offer an exhibition that enriches everyone’s understanding and appreciation of an iconic American artist.”
O’Keeffe (1887–1986) focused on her mastery of painting for decades, but also was very fond of expressing her unique perspective through other mediums, such as photography. Her creative identity and singular artistry were well established by the time she focused on photography in the mid-1950s, showing the artist’s ongoing fascination with the cycles and transformations of nature.
The exhibition is organized by the key tenets of O’Keeffe’s photography—reframing, the rendering of light and seasonal change—revealing the ways she used photography as part of her unique and encompassing artistic vision.
“Georgia O’Keeffe and her artistry have inspired volumes of scholarly analysis, exhibitions and portraiture,” said Eric Paddock, Curator of Photography at the DAM. “This exhibition from MFAH finally sheds light on her work as a photographer. O’Keeffe explored the world with a camera to refine and clarify her vision as a painter. These photographs provide startling insight into her work.”
Georgia O'Keeffe, Ladder Against Studio Wall with Black Chow (Bo-Bo), 1959–60, gelatin silver print, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe. © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum.
Catalog
A groundbreaking introduction to the photographic work of an iconic modern artist
The pathbreaking artist Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986) is revered for her iconic paintings of flowers, skyscrapers, animal skulls, and Southwestern landscapes. Her photographic work, however, has not been explored in depth until now. After the death of her husband, the photographer Alfred Stieglitz, in 1946, photography indeed became an important part of O’Keeffe’s artistic production. She trained alongside the photographer Todd Webb, revisiting subjects that she had painted years before—landforms of the Southwest, the black door in her courtyard, the road outside her window, and flowers. O’Keeffe’s carefully composed photographs are not studies of detail or decisive moments; rather, they focus on the arrangement of forms.
This is the first major investigation of O’Keeffe’s photography and traces the artist’s thirty-year exploration of the medium, including a complete catalogue of her photographic work. Essays by leading scholars address O’Keeffe’s photographic approach and style and situate photography within the artist’s overall practice. This richly illustrated volume significantly broadens our understanding of one of the most innovative artists of the twentieth century.