Georgia O'Keeffe : The Poetry of Things

By Elizabeth Hutton Turner

Book Overview

Georgia O'Keeffe's extraordinary still-life paintings-of apples, leaves, flowers, shells, trees, rocks, crosses, bones, & doors-reinvented the genre through a new language of color & form that synthesized Eastern thought & a Western style of painting. This stunning book is the first in-depth exploration of O'Keeffe's unique contribution to still-life painting. The book presents an essay by Elizabeth Hutton Turner that explores the formative influence of Arthur Wesley Dow & the unique confluence of Eastern & Western thought in O'Keeffe's approach to objects. It is followed by an essay by Marjorie Balge-Crozier that compares O'Keeffe's invention in still life to academic practices & traditional models in Western art. The essays are accompanied by beautiful full-page reproductions of O'Keeffe's paintings as well as contextual photographs of her studios, collections, & exhibition installations & related historical & contemporary works. The book also provides an illustrated chronology of O'Keeffe's life by Elsa Mezvinsky Smithgall.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0943044243
• ISBN13: 9780943044248
• Release Date: January 1970
• Publisher: Phillips Collection, The
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 2.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 9.5" x 11.0"

Customer Reviews

wonderful gift

I sent this book as a gift, based on the glowing review on this page. My donee/friend wrote: "What a wonderful surprise and delight the O'Keefe book has brought me today! It is indeed something very special, with elegant color illustrations, plus many photos from various times of her life, and biographical details all through the text. There is a wonderful photo of her (by Ansel Adams) -- she wears a dark sweater, and is sitting, sketching, at the rocky entrance to what may be a cave --- and all of her design ideas seem to be there in the photo: her own interesting form, contrasts of dark and light, austerity yet beautiful rhythms....I had no idea what a pathfinder she was, going her own road by interpreting objects in an entirely personal way. Everything has her magic touch. The color plates are excellent." I have her permission to send these comments to you.

Outstanding book from an outstanding exhibition

This is the companion catalog to the O'Keeffe exhibition at the Phillips gallery in Washington, DC, and is a wonderful volume on O'Keeffe whether or not you were fortunate enough to see this exhibition. What impressed me most about the exhibition (and the book) is how intelligently it was put together. It examines O'Keeffe's development as an artist by tracking both her philosphy and her influences, and some rarely shown works were chosen to represent this in the exhibition (and are reproduced in the book). Of all the books on O'Keeffe that I've read, and of all the exhibitions I've seen of her work, this one by far does the best job of explaining both the artist and her work.