"GEORGIA O'KEEFFE: WORKS ON PAPER". Collectif. Editions Museum of New Mexico Press, Santa Fe. 1988. Imprimé au Japon. Grand in-8, dos droit, couverture souple cartonnée illustrée en couleurs. 102 pages. Texte en anglais de Barbara Haskell, introduction David Turner, illustré de nombreuses reproductions photographiques, 15 en noir & blanc et 37 en couleurs, hors texte, d'œuvres de Georgia O'Keeffe. Ouvrage réalisé dans le cadre de l'exposition éponyme au Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe, du 14 Septembre au 17 Novembre 1985.

 

"…There is a story about how O'Keeffe first came to the attention of Alfred Stieglitz, who did so much to encourage her career. It involves the early charcoal drawings she made in 1915 while teaching art at Columbia College in Columbia, South Carolina. With the basic medium of sticks of charcoal on sheets of paper, O'Keeffe began to assimilate the ideas of her teacher, Arthur W. Dow, in the sensitive arrangement of lines, shapes, and space that represented personal, subjective emotions. These drawings, which were primarily abstract arrangements of forms related to nature that came from O'Keeffe's imagination, were comparable to the art by leading American modernists like Arthur Dove, John Marin, and Paul Strand. O'Keeffe sent a series of drawings to her college friend, Anita Pollitzer, for critique. When Pollitzer showed them to Alfred Stieglitz at 291 on January 1, 1916, he remarked that they were the "purest, finest, sincerest things that have entered 291 in a large while." In May of that year Stieglitz exhibited ten of those drawings at 291. This stimulation from Stieglitz led O'Keeffe to continue her work in charcoal, and later that year she began adding color to her work by using watercolor For three years, 1916-1918, O'Keeffe worked primarily on paper with watercolor, charcoal, and pastel. The portability of the media allowed her to walk over the West Texas plains or through the Lake George forests to paint and draw directly from nature. Yet these pictures are not purely naturalistic. Though they are based on strict observation, they reflect a free spirit which pays attention to the essential shape, form, and color in nature. The works are fresh and direct. They illustrate the immediacy of a spontaneous revelation quickly noted. They are sketches of inspired moments. O'Keeffe later turned to working more precisely in oil, but she never totally abandoned her work on paper. The later drawings and watercolors were often opportunities for her to freely explore ideas she eventually painted in oil. Or they were simply chances for her to return to the less formal, more intimately scaled media that she had previously mastered…" David Turner.

 

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