Product Description
When Georgia O'Keeffe first visited New Mexico in 1917, she was instantly drawn to the stark beauty of its unusual architectural and landscape forms. In 1929, she began spending part of almost every year painting there, first in Taos, and subsequently in and around Alcalde, Abiquiu, and Ghost Ranch, with occasional excursions to remote sites she found particularly compelling. Georgia O'Keeffe and New Mexico is the first book to analyze the artist's famous depictions of these Southwestern landscapes.

Beautifully illustrated and gracefully written, the book accompanies an exhibition of the same name at the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It reproduces the exhibition's 50 paintings and includes striking photographs of the sites that inspired them as well as diagrams of the region's distinctive geology. The book examines the magnificence of O'Keeffe's work through essays by three noted authors. Barbara Buhler Lynes, Curator of the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum and organizer of the exhibition, discusses the relationship of the artist's paintings to the places that inspired her.

Frederick Turner offers an illuminating essay contrasting O'Keeffe's fabled aloofness from the well-established art colony in Santa Fe with her intense closeness to the local landscape she so fiercely loved. Lesley Poling-Kempes furnishes a fascinating chronicle of O'Keeffe's years in the region as well as a useful explanation of the geological forces that produced the intense colors and dramatic shapes of the landscapes O'Keeffe painted.

Buffalo, New YorkJanuary 28-May 08, 2005 ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Excellent book for artists and those who appreciate fine art
Excellent book on this artist and her work.Would recommend to everyone with an eye on art and special ways to see artistic subjects.

One of the best books on O'keeffe
To understand this woman's art, you have to know her place.

This is it.Her wellspring.The place she felt at home.

I adore this book.To see pictures of the places right next to O'keeffe's versions is just stunning.

I believe god gave her Perdinal, after all.

Living in New Mexico
I live 12 miles from Abiquiu, New Mexico where Georgia O'Keefe lived and painted the last 39 plus years of her life.One can only imagine the beauty from her paintings unless you've had the opportunity to see it in person.The book does have quite a few of the paintings she did while living in Abiquiu and at Ghost Ranch; however, if you are interested in reading about her life, the book to read is Portrait of An Artist; A Biography of Georgia O'Keefe by Laurie Lisle.I couldn't put the book down!

A Perfect Place
I've toured her home in Abiquiu, visited the museum in Santa Fe, and now toured Ghost Ranch to view the locales of many of Georgia O'Keeffe's paintings. This book is a perfect reminder of these experiences and one I already treasure. ... Read more

Product Description
This magnificent book examines O'Keeffe's life and work, focusing onthe quintessential American qualities of her art and her idiosyncraticway of seeing. Eldredge discovers for example, O'Keeffe's connectionto the Transcendentalist tradition in American thought, and herrelationship to America's awakening enthusiasm for Freudian theorizingand feminine self-revelation. He also describes O'Keeffe's modernity,her innovative readiness to push her art toward abstraction and serialart. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Many Color Art reproductions
This book has a thorough and interesting history of the artist and explanations of her works defining moments of massive growth as an artist. The history describes well her confidences arising out of her doubts.

never too many books of O'Keeffe paintings
This is the catalog for an international exhibition that was shown in England, Mexico, and Japan. Eldredge offers an interesting, readable, brief biography of the artist and a thoughtful, coherent discussion of the paintings in the exhibit, most of which are reproduced as full-page color plates. Arguably the most important among American artists, there can never be too many books of Georgia O'Keeffe's paintings. ... Read more

Product Description
"A reverential, chronological history of a major American painter. Gherman tells O'Keeffe's story from infancy to old age. . . . This is the story of a very strong woman, a pioneer in the sense of her singular vision and the courage to be lead by it."--School Library Journal. 26 black-and-white photos. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Very interesting!!!
Georgia was a women who had a speicial talent in art. She went to many different schools to learn about the many different types of painting. She was critized my male artists because she was a women who wanted to paint. One man who helped her in her career was her husband who owned an art gallery in New York. Her paintings are very unique compared to other artists. She painted very big and colorful. Her drawings had cartoon characteristics which many people didn't like because it was not traditional. I liked this book very much because it showed how women in those days had to be very motivated to survive the pressure in the men's world. Also it showed how Georgia and other painters brought a knew style of painting into the new world.

I liked this book very much because it was very detailed.
Georgia was a women who had a special talent in art. She went to many different schools to learn about the different types of painting. She always was critized by male artists because of her gender. One man who helped her durring her career was her husband, who owned an art gallery in New York. Her paintings are very unique caompared to other artists, they have many cartoon characteristics. They're very large and bright which many artists didn't like at that time. I liked this book because it showed how women those days had to have lot's of motivation to survive the man's world. Also it showed how different types of paintings came out into the new world. ... Read more

Product Description
The first exploration of the art that Georgia O'Keeffe retained for her personal collection, including works that have never been publicly exhibited. Georgia O'Keeffe was one of America's preeminent artists and one of the first to experiment with abstract form, though she never abandoned her deep response to and observation of nature. An enormously popular artist, she became identified and respected as an independent American spirit through both her art and her life. At the time of her death in 1986, Georgia O'Keeffe owned more than half of the approximately 2,000 works she had produced during the eighty years she was active as an artist: some 400 works in oil, charcoal, pastel, pencil, and watercolor, as well as more than 700 sketches. For various reasons, she had always kept a portion of her art out of the public eye and these works were not published, exhibited, or available for purchase during her lifetime. Among the works that had been exhibited and sold over the years, some were repurchased by O'Keeffe as they became available. This book explores for the first time the significance of O'Keeffe's collection of her own work. Approximately 75 seminal works, dating from about 1910 through the 1960s and reproduced in full color, document the range and quality of the art that O'Keeffe either chose to retain in her estate or consciously distributed to institutions in her lifetime and as bequests. It reveals her thinking in relation to her oeuvre, providing a unique perspective from which to understand O'Keeffe as artist and collector. The book accompanies an exhibition organized by the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, the principal recipients to date of art from the O'Keeffe estate. The exhibition coincides with the opening of the Milwaukee Art Museum's major addition designed by noted Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. 110 color and 20 b/w illustrations. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Georgia O'Keefe Book
This is an excellent gift for someone who wants the art but also a little bit of background.Nicely done.

Good overview of OKeeffe's work
This is a great overview of OKeeffe's work. I love her desert work and recommend this coffee table book which is full of her work.

Seventy-five seminal works reproduced in full color
Georgia O'Keeffe died in 1986 owning more than half the approximately two thousand works she had produced during the eighty years she was active as an artist. Four hundred of those works were oils, charcoals, pastels, pencils, and watercolors. Additionally there were more than seven hundred sketches in her personal collection. O'Keeffe's O'Keeffes: The Artist's Collection explores and showcases the significance of Georgia O'Keeffe's collection of her own work and comprises seventy-five seminal works reproduced in full color and dating from around 1910 down through the 1960s. Unique, impressive, O'Keeffe's O'Keeffes is an essential volume for students of American art history in general, and the life and work of Georgia O'Keeffe in particular. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

very well written, concise and fun to read
This is a very solid introduction to the life and works of Ms Okeefe. It's detailed without being excessively so. Great for any home library. An educational (albeit pricey) gift for artistic children and adults.

Georgia O"Keefe An Amazing Life
Ms. Shull's biography of Georgia O'Keefe is original, well written and interesting to read. Ms. Shull's carefully reasearched book weaves together facts and anecdotes to give the reader a complete portrait of a most complicated woman/artist. I throughly enjoyed this book and think that readers of all ages would find it interesting and enlightening. This book would be a great addition to eveyone's library! BUY IT!!! ... Read more

Product Description
"The definitive life of O'Keeffe." —Hilton Kramer, Los Angeles TimesGeorgia O'Keefe (1887?-1986) was one of the most successful American artists of the twentieth century: her arresting paintings of enormous, intimately rendered flowers, desert landscapes, and stark white cow skulls are seminal works of modern art. But behind O'Keeffe's bold work and celebrity was a woman misunderstood by even her most ardent admirers. This large, finely balanced biography offers an astonishingly honest portrayal of a life shrouded in myth. 16 pages of b/w illustrations, 32 pages of color. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

From Myth to Legend
In meticulous, even painstaking detail, biographer and art critic, Hunter Drohojowska-Philp has recorded the near century of Georgia O'Keeffe's life and art. O'Keeffe (1887-1986) is known even by those who know next to nothing about art--her paintings of gargantuan flowers and bleached white bones are well-known by the general public, even those who may never step inside an art museum or gallery. Being able to identify an O'Keeffe painting, however, has no relation to understanding the artist and the influences upon her life and creativity.

Coming from a family of artists, I am far more inclined to step inside an art gallery than, say, a sports stadium, and so I knew Georgia O'Keeffe's work well. Or, at least ... I thought I did. What I knew was actually more the myth than the woman, the sales pitch rather than the art.

As with any celebrity, and Georgia certainly became that, biographies abound. One has only to determine which one might offer more truth than imagination, and in this case, I imagine the autobiography Georgia herself authored may not be the most truthful. It can be difficult to be objective about oneself, and when a woman has suffered some of the indignities that this woman suffered, the reaction can often be to sweep under the carpet some of the ugliness of life, and leave on exhibit only the beauty and the recovery from that ugly suffering.

Georgia O'Keeffe's life was not all roses. More thorn, perhaps. More a cutting down to the bone. Born in a small rural town near Madison, Wisconsin, she grew up without material advantage, making her own way in the world. Her art education began at the Art Institute of Chicago, continued in New York at the Art Students League. The discovery and subsequent exposure to the art world of her work is attributed to Alfred Stieglitz, art dealer and owner of Gallery 291 in New York. The gallery was known for being edgy and innovative, bringing to light new and abstract, groundbreaking art. Stieglitz was also a photographer, one of the firsts, breaking ground of his own. A friend of Georgia's had brought samples of her work to Stieglitz and he was thrilled at the find, remarking that at last, here was a woman who could paint, and who painted as a woman.

At that point, an important door opens in Georgia's life. Doors are an important theme in her artwork, an important metaphor--one that appears often in her paintings in synchronicity with the opening and closing of doors in her own life--and this door opened onto a relationship that affected her life and psyche deeply for a long time to come. Stieglitz, without her permission, put her artwork on exhibit in his gallery. When she stopped in and saw her work on his walls, she indignantly insisted he take it down. This exchange seemed to set a certain tone for their partnership: he was a controller; she was a young woman just finding her way, not yet in control, but struggling to find it. As the story unfolds, we see how the older man, then married, seduces Georgia into an affair, as much because he falls in love with her art as he does with her. Alas, Stieglitz, we soon learn, is a womanizer. Today, we call his sort sex addicts. Indeed, he and pal Auguste Rodin, also known as a womanizer, and whose sculptures ("The Thinker") and drawings he is first on American soil to put on exhibit, exchange pornographic drawings and photos over the years, feeding each other's seedier appetites.

The years to follow this meeting at Gallery 291 are the years of a tormented marriage. Stieglitz divorces his wife to marry Georgia, who had no interest whatsoever in marriage, but finally agrees to it--insisting she still keep her own name--more to save his reputation than her own. Stieglitz's first wife and daughter both end up handling nervous breakdowns and mental illness brought on by his treatment of his first family. Cheat once, cheat again. And again. And yet again. The marriage of Stieglitz and O'Keeffe is riddled with affairs (his), and O'Keeffe finds her time away from him of ever greater solace. Yet there it is: for all his womanizing, Stieglitz adores his wife, loves her and will not leave her. He, in fact, is the one to deal with increasing anxiety that someday she will leave him. The affairs continue, nonetheless, with most any woman he photographs in the nude (and there are many). Finally, there is the more longstanding affair with Dorothy Norman, a young woman who takes great pleasure in tormenting the older woman and wife with her victories over Stieglitz, using and manipulating his weakness against him every chance she gets. His blatant and open involvement with this mistress eventually causes Georgia to suffer a complete nervous breakdown, requiring hospitalization, while he seems to remain weirdly oblivious to how much pain he is causing her.

Projecting perhaps more what is on his mind than on Georgia's, Stieglitz promotes her work to the public as heavily sexualized. These aren't just flowers she is painting ... these are the damp petals of a woman's genitalia. A white bone standing out against the sky? He saw phallic symbols. Georgia abhorred Stieglitz's marketing of her work, yet she had to admit: it worked. It's hard to say if her paintings would have reached such a tremendous audience if it hadn't been for the manner of Stieglitz's promotions. Adding to that effect, he took hundreds of photographs of his wife, many of which were in the nude. He exhibited these, too, and without her permission. She was horrified. She had agreed to the photos as a gift of intimacy to her husband alone, in part to try to regain his wandering eye and attention. This did not work, but his photos of her did have measurable affect on her growing popularity.

Today, Georgia O'Keeffe is seen as one of the first feminists, certainly in the field of art. Increasingly leaving her husband to his ways in New York, she developed her own home and life in New Mexico, in the desert she so grew to love. From a distance, she was able to continue to love him in her own way. She learned to detach herself enough that his affairs would no longer break her. She learned to find her own style, her own artistic expression on the opposite side of the country. When Stieglitz died of a heart attack, she grieved him even while embracing her solitude, her independence, her freedom. Ghost Ranch became her permanent home, and her work had sold so well, not only in the United States, but internationally, that she had become one of the wealthiest women of her time. Her personality, molded no doubt in part by an emotionally abusive relationship, hardened into a determined control over her own world and her image. Whereas Stieglitz had taken control of her image in her beginning years, now she was free to move in a direction true to her. Dropping the Freudian allusions, she focused on vibrant color, on paintings that were an expression of emotion rather than subject. She searched for simplicity, for clean lines, for the shapes she found in nature. Her work is definitely feminine, a combination of power and grace, the soft and the hard, the straight line and the gentle curve.

In her later years, the artist was known to be eccentric at times, even prickly, not allowing just anyone into her life, even while she would later grow to trust again when she should not (a portion of the book is about a younger man, John Hamilton, who takes advantage of her in her aging years, when Georgia again needs assistance in basic daily chores, and he convinces her to leave much of her estate to him).

As detailed as this biography is, and perhaps it is too much so, it did give me a much better understanding of the woman and her art. Too long, I had bought into the marketing of Stieglitz, not realizing the artist herself resented this view of her paintings, of those great, lush flowers, beautiful for their own sake, without the attachment of metaphor. If for no other reason, I am grateful to this book's author for separating the sales pitch from the true intent of a remarkable artist. Georgia O'Keeffe accomplished the opening of a path to women artists. She stood up, and survived, and thrived, becoming an inspiration for women in abusive and stifling relationships. She showed the ability to love, if at a safe distance, even under the most callous treatment. She exhibited a woman's ability to create out of personal suffering, and from something ugly, to develop a lasting beauty. If an oyster creates pearls out of painful grit caught in its tender flesh, so, too, does Georgia O'Keeffe create her pearls, too immense to miss, too vibrant to ignore, too unique to mistake for any other.

Zinta Aistars for The Smoking Poet, Fall 2009

How On Earth Did This Get Published?
How did the writer convince anyone to publish this poor rendition of drivel?Her English is appalling, she jumps all over the time line and doesn't introduce people throughout the book. Given that I have read ever other book on Ms. O'Keefe I really think this one was a complete waste of time.

Excellent information regarding Georgia's life
Well written book and excellent research.Enjoyed very much.

Tremendous and important detail lacking in other biographies
Detailed and thoughtful, and a riveting read if you really want to understand this artist's life. After reading dozens of books and articles about O'Keeffe during the course of my own research on New York-inspired artwork, I didn't think another O'Keeffe biography was necessary. But I'm grateful I found this book. I learned so much more about this artist--about her friendships, her travels beyond New York and the Southwest, and her abstract works.

Gave me a new appreciation for O'Keeffe's art
I never really liked O'Keeffe's more abstract paintings until I read this biography.Now I can look at them with an improved understanding of what they mean and what she managed to accomplish for female artists everywhere.It's equally nice to see the artist as a person with her own foibles and nuances.The author has done a remarkable job here. ... Read more

Product Description
Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986) has become one of America’s best-known artists. This book, which accompanies an exhibition of the same name, centers on O’Keeffe’s efforts to ensure proper conservation of the fragile surfaces of her paintings of bones, flowers, and landscapes. Based on previously unpublished correspondence between O’Keeffe and distinguished conservator Caroline Keck, this catalogue from the Mississippi Museum of Art presents entirely new information about the relationship between O’Keeffe’s aesthetic vision and her distinctive handling of paint and pastel.

O’Keeffe’s use of color has long been regarded as a source of the great emotional power that animates her abstract renderings of natural forms. But little was known about her techniques, because she surrounded her studio practices with a wall of secrecy. Her correspondence with Keck reveals that she was surprisingly traditional, sometimes making her own color chips and pastel sticks and even at times grinding her own pigments.

The essays in Georgia O’Keeffe: Color and Conservation consider the artist’s enduring love of the very substance of color. Through close analysis of paintings and pastels with a continuous history of conservation, the essays document O’Keeffe’s and Keck’s painstaking efforts to restore damaged art to its original state. . The discussion and accompanying illustrations will give readers an expanded understanding of the subtle beauty and diversity of O’Keeffe’s painting methods. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Collaborations between an artist and a conservator
First book ever to publish the correspondence between a known artist (O'Keeffe) and conservator (Caroline K. Keck).Very useful for the reader to learn how the work of a conservator can affect the look and long-term preservation of paintings.

The book also contains important information on O'Keeffe's materials and techniques and the many small sample cards of color she prepared in order to make the choices for the palettes of her paintings.

Georgia O'Keeffe: Color and Conservation
Very pleased with the price of the catalog.
I received it in a short time frame.My only negative is that one corner of the book was creased and I am persnickety about my books. ... Read more

Product Description
Ansel Adams and Georgia O'Keeffe first metin Taos, New Mexico, in 1929. She was already an established artist, while he was at the beginning of his career, and their friendship lasted for the rest of their lives.

GEORGIA O'KEEFE AND ANSEL ADAMS: NATURAL AFFINITIES suggests parallels in their distinctive visions of both natural and human-made environments and illustrates the artists' achievements in capturing the reality and essence of the world around them. More than 100 beautifully reproduced paintings and photographs are accompanied by critical essays on Adams and O'Keeffe and a biographical essay on the friendship between Adams, O'Keeffe, and Alfred Stieglitz. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

a good combination of there story and there art.
Very good quality art reproductions and well-written personnel story, not too long and rambling, just the meat with some interesting and relevant details. A nice intro to both artists lives, their work and their co-incidental (love-hate) relationship with each other.

Excellent
I received this beautiful book in excellent condition. I had just been to the exhibit it is based upon and I was not disappointed. The book captures the essence of their works with stellar art and photo reproductions. Next best thing to being there! I thought O'Keefe was unbelievable and then turned to the incredible black and white photography of Adams. I love color, but the almost silken quality and exquisite detail of these photos stopped me in my tracks.The affinities, mutual respect, friendship and admiration the two artists had for each other turned out to be instrumental to the continued creativity of both.

Talent by Nature
The images contained within Georgia O'Keefe and Ansel Adams: Natural Affinities are stunningly radiant - and in the literal sense, you will be physically stunned and unable to move, paralyzed by their beauty and will end up staring, fixated upon them as if the images were icons of something divine and simply looking at them would reveal to you all of the secrets of the universe.

Simply gorgeous reproductions of two of the most important artists of the twentieth century are shown, along with essays explaining them, and the dynamic between the two artists. Ansel Adams and Georgia O'Keefe's work is compared, and parallels are drawn between the two in the commentary, which is actually quite insightful.

The words, however astute and perceptive they may be (and they are), are most definitely not the highlight of the book; It, of course, is quite obvious that the resplendent paintings and photographs steal the show. O'Keefe's paintings are, somehow, simultaneously loud and soft-spoken. They jump out of the book and become people in flamboyant dress that act in such a way that they give off an aura of quiet-confidence. The universally appealing curves she employs combine with her seemingly everlasting color-palette to create deeply emotional and moving work, and her effortless and natural use of symbolism is so highly refined and subtle that it may not ever be matched.

Adams' photography is equally riveting, showing exactly why he is considered one of the most influential artists in the history of the medium. His body of work ranges from extremely intimate and personal looks into his own life, to awe-inspiring larger-than-life landscapes. His work that captures jagged, sharp, and rough forms found within nature is particularly compelling, seeing as these shapes and the emotions that they induce are not usually associated with nature.

The ironically earth-shattering work of both artists is simply fascinating. The prose included is almost as significant as the visual art, and both combine to make a non-pretentious yet supremely fantastic book - a task not easily done. An absolute necessity for any person that has functioning eyeballs, Georgia O'Keefe and Ansel Adams: Natural Affinities is one of the most significant books of a quite an expansive amount of time.

Reviewed by Jordan Dacayanan

Great Book
This is a true masterpiece of beautiful art by two of the greatest artists of our time.I am very happy with the book.Because of loose packaging the jacket was badly torn and had to be thorn away.
I love the book though.

See the show, skip the book
I just saw this show at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art.The show was very well put together, except that the Ansel Adams photographs were over matted covering a slight amount of the border and Ansel's signature.

Copies of this book were available at the show and after seeing the actual art I was very disappointed in the quality of the book.The color reproductions of O'Keeffe's work were OK, but the reproductions of the photographs were just awful.The reproductions appeared flat in comparison to the photographs but also in comparison to many other better reproductions of Ansel's work.No only that but there appeared to be a lot of dust on the photographs when they were reproduced.For instance the black sky in his iconic 'Moonrise Over Hernandez New Mexico' has several dozen white spots in the sky.Other photographs suffer from this same problem.It is unfortunate since the show included a couple images I had not seen reproduced before.

The publisher of this book (Little Brown) has recently published several of Ansel's books in the past including 'Trees' and the excellent '400 photographs.'Both of these books were printed in Western Europe.For some reason (probably to save money) they decided to go with a printer in Singapore for this book, the quality unfortunately suffered. ... Read more

Product Description
Georgia O'Keeffe has dominated twentieth-century American art and proved herself one of its most original talents. Jan Garden Castro's The Art & Life of Georgia O'Keeffe offers the most complete account of both the artist's fascinating private life and her extraordinary career.

In 1917 Alfred Stieglitz, pioneer photographer and impresario, organized O'Keeffe's first one-person exhibition, the last show at his famous gallery "291." She also became the subject of many of his finest photographic works and the center of his personal and professional world for the rest of his life. Her acceptance into the Stieglitz group brought her in touch with a wide circle of creative individuals, including Ansel Adams, Arthur Dove, John Marin, and Charles Demuth, to name a few. While learning from these colleagues, O'Keeffe also maintained a fierce independence from them. She had a certain mystique as a woman and an artist, and many of her contemporaries immortalized her in their work. She was the first woman artist whose face and life were of great interest to the public.

Georgia O'Keeffe's career has spanned much of the history of modern art in America. Here are more than a hundred paintings, many rarely exhibited or reproduced, photographs of O'Keeffe at various stages of her life and of the landscapes that inspired her, and a text richly documented with letters and interviews. This material, combined with Jan Castro's insightful criticism, reveals O'Keeffe's legacy as an artist and the force of her intriguing personality. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

An excellent, defining book
Who is Georgia O'Keeffe? Why did she paint those flowers so HUGE? Why did she paint things of the desert? What kind of relationships did she have? Why is New Mexico so important?

Ask no longer. The answers to all those questions and so much more are found right here in "The Art and Life of Georgia O'Keeffe" just as the title indicates. I love this book! I have poured and poured through it, reading excerpts of her life, about her art. Even the controversies are here. Wouldn't you know that stories and explanations of such an icon of both art and a bold way to live one's life would be here. What a woman! What an artisan!

But such a life and resulting art were not without pain. She and Alfred Stieglitz (her husband and famous photographer) had a controversial relationship (especially for the time period). They practically ripped their clothes off at their first meeting. He had to have this woman (they eventually married after his divorce), but artist that he was, he also had to have other women. His unfaithfulness was the one thing that could unravel this strong woman. But, oh my! She, too, was unfaithful, especially after moving to New Mexico, the home of her heart.

During the time I taught art history at the high school level, I used this book for information about Georgia O'Keeffe. Everything I needed was here, including fascinating personal stories from childhood to the productive and relatively peaceful (not boring!) years in New Mexico. How her art developed from the usual realistic views of nature and places to the very personal O'Keeffe viewpoint are here. Stieglitz was an essential catalyst. Her relationships with both friends and fellow artists are illuminated.

If there is a better book about O'Keeffe, I hope I discover it. As for me and now, "The Art and Life of Georgia O'Keeffe" is highly recommended for its personal stories, explanations of her art, and evaluations of both.

The Art and Life of Georgia O'Keeffe
SUMMARY:Georgia O'Keeffe's life, and quite a number of her paintings, are presented here in this fairly large paperback book, along with some of the people and subjects that shaped this great contemporary artist.
POSITIVES:One of the best compilations of Georgia O'Keeffe's artwork that I've seen for awhile, it not only shows her, her life events, and the work she created, but the people who influenced her.You are brought along a journey through O'Keeffe's life, and also what can be gathered through her paintings that reflected her own inner qualities.Best of all in this book, are the countless artistic pieces that she has produced, some photographs by Stieglitz, and other important information that is very valuable in any contemporary art collection.
NEGATIVES:However, the author, despite her intense research and beautiful compilations, does not appear to have put much effort into coordinating her pictures and the explanations that go with them.The organizational aspects of this book are definitely not its best quality, dropping my opinion when it comes to giving it a fair review.I also think you can do better when it comes to finding a book with a comprehensive review of O'Keeffe's life and work.
AGE RANGE:10 and up for comprehension, but much older for enjoyment.(It could be quite boring)

Happy Reading!

A Successful Look at O'Keeffe
Surely it is difficult to sift through an artist's life and write about only the meaningful moments/events.Castro does a good job with this, including what is important and omitting the tedious.Her art criticism is simple and easy to understand and her approach seems balanced. My major complaint with the book is that while she may discuss a painting on page 15, it may well appear on page 200 - with no note or appendix making it possible to find the plate.

GOT TO HAVE BOOK!
This book is insperational with amazing insights in her art work and lifestyle. if you want to find out about this amazing woman and her art work youshould buy this book!

New to the Details of O'Keeffe
Having always been familiar with her work, this book provided me with a good synopsis of her life and her art.The book has a good layout, and a "tasty" palette of her art and color to feed on. ... Read more

Product Description
One of the greatest American painters of the 20th century, Georgia O'Keeffe is beloved by a broad audience that ranges from the most erudite art historian to the twelve-year-old girl next door. Her monumentally sensuous oil paintings of flowers hang in the best museum collections but are known as well via mass-produced posters, greeting cards and calendars; her weathered, elegant, fierce self has long been mythicized through Alfred Stieglitz's classic black-and-white photographs of his wife. This large-format monograph on O'Keefe renews her place in the modern canon and encourages an intensive encounter with her work. Her radical departures from imitative realism, the style that was prevalent when she began to study art making, eventually led to an idiosyncratic painting style characterized by a state of suspension. Over the course of her lengthy career--she worked up until two years before her death at age 98--she discovered and developed a personal language through which to express her own feelings and ideas, creating bold picture conceptions and spatial designs that hover somewhere between the real and the abstract, the close-up and the monumental, natural representation and artificiality.When I was still a little girl, I used to think that since I couldn't do what I wanted to...at least I could paint as I wanted to, and say what I wanted to when I painted.~~The men liked to put me down as the best woman painter. I think I'm one of the best painters. --Georga O'KeeffeEdited by Bice Curiger.~Essays byBice Curiger, Carter Ratcliff, Peter J. Schneimann and Robert Storr.Clothbound, 9.75 x 12.5 in./220 pgs / 70 color 30 BW0 duotone 0 ~ Item D20407 ... Read more

Product Description
This two-volume slipcased catalogue raisonn_ presents in color more than 2,000 works by Georgia O`Keeffe, an artist whose creations placed her at the center of the ferment in early twentieth-century American art. The catalogue`s paintings, drawings, watercolors, and sculpture display O`Keeffe`s innovative use of color and form and testify to her distinctive contribution to American modernism.Amazon.com Review
Georgia O'Keeffe, who was born in 1887 and lived nearly 99 years, was a prolific, successful artist whose work was exhibited continually throughout her adult life. To give an impression of the scope of this two-volume boxed set, here is a sentence from the preface by Barbara Buhler Lynes: "The catalogue reproduces and describes 2,045 objects, made by O'Keeffe between 1901 [when she was 14] and 1984." And for an idea of the care Lynes brought to her task, here is the next: "Of these, 2,029 were located and examined between June 1992 and December 1998: 821 on canvas or board; 1,137 on paper...."

Obviously, this catalog will be indispensable to many libraries and museums, but it is also a work that any lover of O'Keeffe's art will pore over for years. From the first pages of volume 1, a reader is struck by the early appearance of motifs that remained essential to O'Keeffe throughout her life: architectural forms; flowers; vases and vessels with monumental, simplified shapes. (After the early years, however, she deals with the human metaphorically, in phallic sculptures or nipple-like seed pods, or the swollen bellies of clay pots.) For those readers who may have fallen out of love a bit during the 1970s--when O'Keeffe's least works seemed to be included in every gathering of second-rate, so-called women's art--these two volumes will renew their passion. Her astonishing talent, which she never betrayed, pulses through these color-saturated pages. While most works are necessarily reproduced smaller than the originals, the book's designers have dealt thoughtfully with issues of scale by increasing the size of the reproductions as O'Keeffe's paintings became larger and printing her vast, late cloudscapes and other large works at full- or double-page size. This is typical of the sensitivity with which this catalog was conceived. --Peggy Moorman ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

for a gift
I bought this item for a gift, so I can not say anything about this item. But he was satisfied.
Because he is a fan of O'keef
Thank you!

a whole view of her life's work
Well produced and comprehensive, as a whole it adds up to a devastatingly beautiful record of the life's work of the artist with accompanying text on her key influences and relationships.

Wonderful
I was not a fan of Georgia O'Keefe before checking this volume out from the library. Now, I am frankly astonished by the beauty of her work especially her watercolors which are vibrant, clean, and just beautiful. It will be an eye opener to anyone who has formed their opinions solely on her giant flower or cow skull paintings-- whether you like her or not. She was an artist that constantly explored different techniques from printmaking to sculpture. She is inspirational. If you have a library that carries the volume I encourage you to check it out first you will be pleasantly surprised. I am definitely going to purchase these books.

A Wonderful Gift
This book was on my wish list before it was published! I received it as a gift upon my graduation from Art Center College of Design. I have loved Georgia O'Keefe's work since I was very young, and I have most of the bookspublished about her and this one is not only the most comprehensive butbeautiful as well. In a review I read it was described as 'cumbersome',obviously not written by an artist. How can you reduce a life's work intoone volume especially a life that was so influential to so many artists,especialy women. I give it my highest recommendation.

Georgia O'Keeffe : Catalogue Raisonne
Beautiful - Beautiful - Beautiful I am a huge fan of Georgia O'Keeffe and this book has it all.Great color pictures.There are also many things that I learned from her throughout her life as an artist.This book is onmy coffee table and will stay there for life.I will never put it away!Amust for any Georgia O'Keeffe fans! ... Read more

Product Description
Georgia O'Keeffe was one of the most successful American artists of the twentieth century, and her dramatic and iconic paintings are recognised throughout the world today. In this spectacular giant format book, over 100 reproductions of O'Keeffe's most important work are accompanied by Lauris Morgan-Griffiths' expert and insightful commentary on all aspects of the artist's life, influences and paintings.The book begins with O'Keeffe's early life and studies, focusing on her early inspirations, and continues chronologically exploring the influences and the stories behind some of her most important works - including her famous flower paintings. Featuring some of the most iconic and significant artworks of the 20th century, including Evening Star series Purple Petunias and Pelvis Series, Red and Yellow and Above the Clouds, this is a book that will appeal to Georgia O'Keeffe enthusiasts and art lovers alike. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

"I Want To Give That World To Someone Else"
"Georgia O'Keeffe stands out as one of the great American artists of the 20th century. With her exceptionally keen powers of observation and fine, controlled brushwork she was able to capture and communicate her individualistic response to the raw brilliance of nature to a wide audience. Her emotionally tender, intimate and compelling paintings fused an American style with a European sensibility which, together with her artistic brilliance, revolutionized modern art in her time and continues to influence artists to this day." ~ Lauris Morgan Griffiths ~

"Georgia O'Keeffe: An American Perspective" is a definitive collection of more than one hundred remarkable paintings of a uniquely impressive, fine painter of the 20th Century, Georgia O'Keeffe, who was born in 1887 and died in 1986 when she was one year short of 100 years. Lauris Morgan-Griffiths, a long-time fan of O'Keeffe's art who has visited her home in New Mexico, did a very good job in compiling the paintings represented in this 17" x 14" x 1" art book with 176 pages. Each artwork is shown in various sizes with captions and interesting essays. The author studied photography and printing at the London College of Printing. She is a journalist and writer specializing in art, design and photography. She chronicled O'Keeffe's artworks from 1915 through 1977--the same year that the legendary female artist was awarded the "Presidential Medal of Freedom," one the two recognitions bestowed upon her, the other was "National Medal of Arts" in 1985.

Like the author, I am also a long-time fan of O'Keeffe having collected some of her works of art and books such as Nicholas Callaway's "One Hundred Flowers" and Britta Benke's Georgia O'Keeffe, 1887-1986: Flowers In The Desert in addition to this beautiful art book. To my eyes, some of her most remarkable artworks represented here include the following:

"Petunia No. 2" (Oil on Canvas, 1924) - This is among the first flowers that was exhibited. This beautiful artwork is housed at the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe.

"Petunias" (Oil on Hardboard Panel, 1925) - O'Keeffe once said: "When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else."

"Purple Petunias" (Oil on Canvas, 1928) - According to the author this is "a beautiful study of life, of a lightness of spirit."

"Music, Pink and Blue No. 2" (Oil on Canvas, 1919) - Most of her fans are aware that O'Keeffe listened to music while painting.

"White Flower On Red Earth 1" (Oil on Canvas, 1943) - She was in her mid-fifties when she painted this unnamed white flower.

"Bleeding Heart" (Pastel on Paper-faced Cardboard, 1932) - This piece of art is evocative of O'Keeffe feelings about her husband's growing infidelity and was openly having an affair with another woman that continued until his death.

"Single Lily With Red" (Oil on Board, 1928) - It has been said that O'Keeffe painted this at the height of her emotional distress due to her husband's infidelity.

"Green Leaves" (Oil on Canvas, 1923) - She also loved painting leaves and gave them the same level of appreciation she had for flowers.

"Wave, Night" (Oil on Canvas, 1928) - To O'Keeffe, sea was "a complete revelation." One of the things she loved doing was visiting some friends in Maine, and enjoyed "running down the boardwalk to the ocean and watched the changing color of the sea, the repetitive flow of the waves rippling in over the beach."

"2 Calla Lilies On Pink" (Oil on Canvas, 1928) - It is astounding the way O'Keeffe painted these Calla Lilies. The eye-catching color combinations are lovely and what a sight to behold!

"Jimson Weed" (Oil on Canvas, 1936) - "O'Keeffe's love of nature was ignited at an early age and never left her. It was a passion so strong that she truly identified with the natural world." Jimson weed is also known as a "miracle flower" that grew wild in New Mexico.

This art book is a perfect introduction to the life and works of Georgia O'Keeffe who was one of the few female painters who made it as one of the greatest artists whose works are exceptional and uniquely beautiful. One of her most admired paintings, "Calla Lilies With Red Anemone" was sold in 2001 for $6.2 million, the highest price for any female artist sold at auction.

"I found that I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say in any other way--things that I had no words for." ~ Georgia O'Keeffe ~ ... Read more

Product Description
Maria Chabot met Georgia O'Keeffe in Northern New Mexico in 1940. O'Keeffe, one of America's most celebrated artists, was fifty-three and had just purchased a house at Ghost Ranch where she had painted over several previous summers. Chabot, a San Antonian and an aspiring but unknown writer, was a robust twenty-six and familiar with the largely Spanish-speaking culture of the region.

The two were drawn to each other for different reasons. To be free to paint, O'Keeffe needed capable help to sustain and provision her remote household, and although Chabot needed a place to live where she could pursue her writing with minimum distraction, she was also seeking a mentor.

For four summers beginning in 1941, when O'Keeffe was in New Mexico, Chabot lived with the artist at Ghost Ranch, managing her house and guests, and organizing the famed camping-painting trips from which came some of O'Keeffe's most distinguished works of the period. In 1946, Chabot agreed to conceive and oversee the reconstruction of a ruined adobe house in Abiquiu, NM, that would become O'Keeffe's permanent home in 1949.

During the periods when O'Keeffe was in New York where she lived with her husband, famed photographer Alfred Stieglitz, the two women wrote each other with remarkable frequency. Their letters describe their love for northern New Mexico, the hardships of life there during World War II, and their interactions with the diverse cultural groups of the region. The letters also offer insights into the women's very different ways of dealing with the world and their differing perceptions of a complex and sometimes tempestuous friendship. ... Read more

Product Description
"Bram Dijkstra is one of our most consistently brilliant, lucid, original, and independent explorers of modern culture. His newest book illuminates Georgia O'Keeffe, the landscapes of her mind, and America itself."--Catharine Stimpson, New York University

Georgia O'Keeffe has long been recognized as one of America's most adventurous early modernist artists. But critics often suggest that she became a revolutionary despite her American background, not because of it.

Bram Dijkstra challenges that point of view. In this searching reappraisal of O'Keeffe's work, the distinguished cultural historian shows that her art was decisively shaped by the America in which she grew up. In doing so, he casts new light on the facts of O'Keeffe's remarkable life and offers incisive new readings of many of her most important paintings.

Art historians have largely accepted the view that O'Keeffe's art was shaped by Alfred Stieglitz and the work of the European modernists she encountered under his tutelage--a view actively encouraged by the famous photographer himself. Dijkstra counters this idea by taking us into the cultural environment of her childhood and by illuminating the details of her early education in art. He shows that O'Keeffe's mature style found its origin in such apparently unlikely sources as Edgar Allan Poe's speculations about the androgynous nature of the soul before industrialism, and in what Dijkstra calls the "transcendental materialism" of the tonalist movement in turn-of-the-century American art.

Dijkstra also explores O'Keeffe's important--but until now widely neglected--identification with the feminist aims and artistic concerns of the radical periodical The Masses. And he shows that even the daring new styles of illustration featured there, and in other magazines of the period, significantly influenced her development of a personal style. Dijkstra argues, moreover, that O'Keeffe's very American search for an organic abstraction of form that would celebrate nature allowed her to develop a humanist style that deliberately challenged the early European modernists' emphasis on mechanistic constructions of form against nature.

Beautifully written and painstakingly researched, Georgia O'Keeffe and the Eros of Place is a major reassessment of O'Keeffe's place in American culture and a tribute to the artist's steadfast refusal to abandon her "provincial" belief in the shaping spirit of place. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

fine book, horrid photographs
This is a most interesting treatment of O'Keefe, Modernism, gender, and place.I began the book with misgivings -- I don't always like Dijkstra -- but this is useful, interesting, and a pleasure to read.One caveat --like many books written about art by non-art historians, the reproductionsare scandalously bad.I had to check out two (2) books from the library tomake sense of the paintings.This is undoubtedly not Dijkstra's fault, butthe fault of the Press.The only decent reproduction (the only one incolor) is on the DUSTJACKET!Oh, well, what can we say. ... Read more