MONMOUTHSHIRE Museums are running one more art history lecture online this summer, on Monday, September 6, at 3.30pm.
Held by lecturer Eleanor Bird, the subject is one of the most significant artists of the 20th century. Georgia O’Keeffe led a full and fascinating life – and here’s the opportunity to find out about her, and her work.
Georgia O’Keeffe was a major figure in 20th century American art for seven decades. She was a ground-breaking artist between the world wars, part of a group who introduced Modernism to the US but who was also very much her own woman.
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O’Keeffe went to New York in 1918 where she fell in love with well-known art dealer and photographer, Alfred Stieglitz. He vigorously promoted her work throughout his life, while recording the ups and downs of their relationship in a series of celebrated photographs.
Through Stieglitz, O’Keeffe became part of a group of photographers and artists whose work recorded the towering new skyscrapers of the city as well as the natural world in a style influenced by Cubism. In the 1920s she began to paint her dramatic close-ups of flowers, breaking away from others’ sharp-cornered images into organic and colourful shapes.
These pictures became so sought after that her painting of the wildflower, Jimson Weed, would sell at auction in 2014 for $44 million, the most ever paid for an artwork by a woman. But O’Keeffe didn’t want to be branded as a female painter.
She said: "Men put me down as the best woman painter. I think I’m one of the best painters.”
She began to travel separately each year to the sparse and haunting landscapes of New Mexico, where she eventually settled permanently. Here she could get away from the hectic New York art world and paint a remarkable series focusing on the dried-up animal bones, red rocks and sinuous riverbeds of the desert state. Georgia O’Keeffe is best known for her paintings of magnified flowers, animal skulls, and the New Mexico desert landscapes.
A 90-minute online lecture presented through MonLife Heritage Museums will look at the life and work of this extraordinary artist. Only one booking per household is necessary. Booking is essential by 4pm on Sunday, September 5.
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