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Georgia O'Keeffe
Jack Cowart & Juan Hamilton
Signed / inscribed
This is the catalogue of the major 1987 Georgia O'Keeffe retrospective mounted by the National Gallery of Art in Washington—the definitive museum reckoning with her work in the year after her death. Edited by Jack Cowart and Juan Hamilton with the curator Sarah Greenough, it reproduces the exhibition's paintings in full color and interleaves a generous selection of O'Keeffe's own letters, so the images arrive accompanied by the artist's plain, tart, unmistakable voice. The show traveled on to Chicago, Dallas, and the Metropolitan Museum, and the book became a standard reference. For readers who want the authoritative overview of O'Keeffe—flowers, cityscapes, the bones and hills of New Mexico—set beside primary-source words from the woman herself, this handsome volume remains among the best single introductions to her life and art.
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The artist
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) was a defining figure of American modernism, celebrated for magnified flowers, spare New York cityscapes, and the desert landscapes of New Mexico where she spent her later decades. Her early reputation was bound up with the photographer Alfred Stieglitz, her champion and husband.
The book
Published by the National Gallery of Art with the New York Graphic Society in 1987, this is the catalogue for the Gallery's landmark retrospective, edited by Jack Cowart and Juan Hamilton with essays and a section of O'Keeffe's letters selected by Sarah Greenough. The exhibition traveled to the Art Institute of Chicago, the Dallas Museum of Art, and the Metropolitan Museum.
How it reads
Pairing full-color plates with the artist's correspondence gives the volume unusual depth and keeps it in scholarly use. O'Keeffe's own words repeatedly puncture the romantic myths that gathered around her, which is much of the pleasure.
For more context
Juan Hamilton was O'Keeffe's late-life companion and executor; the letters here draw on the archive now central to the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe.
Sources
- Type
- Book
- Author / Maker
- Jack Cowart & Juan Hamilton
- Publisher
- National Gallery of Art / New York Graphic Society (Little, Brown)
- Place of publication
- Washington; Boston
- Year
- 1987
- ISBN
- None
- Shelf
- Art
- Location
- Maine
Roger Grant, Christmas 1988