In 1916, Georgia O'Keeffe was 29 years old. At this point, her life came to a crossroads:
She did not follow the traditional female life to return to the family;
But the artistic path he chose looked bleak.
After graduating from high school, she came to Chicago to engage in artistic creation, painting one exquisite realistic work after another, which was praised by her teachers. But she believes that her paintings are beautiful and have no soul.
▲ Early works of Eugeve
Fortunately, her girlfriend Anita Borize has been writing letters to encourage her.
Borizard has a glamorous career, working as an assistant at 291 Gallery on Fifth Avenue in New York. 291 Gallery was the master of contemporary photography at the time, Alfred Stiglitz. He married a wealthy man and had his own mature and avant-garde artistic circle.
▲ Stiglitz with his photographic works
On New Year's Day 1916, Stiglitz was still busy in his office. Apart from art, there is nothing that can arouse his interest. Even on New Year's Day, he didn't want to go home.
When Boretze spread Out Eugeve's charcoal drawings on the table, Steglitz was suddenly hit. He was silent, flipping them gently one by one, and watched for an hour.
"Who painted this?"
"Georgia Totto O'Keeffe, my friend. I've been here before. ”
▲ Stiglitz's portrait of O'Keeffe
Stiglitz thought he was unimpressed by the man. "Can you write a letter to her on my behalf?" His gaze still lingers on the painting, "telling her that her work is the purest, most refined, and most sincere since its inception in 291." Boretzee smiled, proud of O'Keeffe and proud of her vision.
Stiglitz realized that he had found an artistic treasure that was more famous than photography.
At this time, Stiglitz was 52 years old and O'Keeffe was 29 years old.
Gallery 291 later became a gathering place for the pioneers of international modernism in the United States. This gallery is also the gathering point of the Dada Movement in New York. Between 1908 and 1917, the works of many of Europe's greatest modernists were exhibited here, including Cézanne, Toulouse-Lautrec, Brancus, Matisse and Braque.
▲The original site of 291 Gallery
In 1917, under the tireless recommendation of Stiglitz, O'Keeffe was becoming a rising star in the American art world.
At this time, O'Keeffe was 30 years old.
The Texan landscape in Eugeff's paintings is completely different from the expressive style of previous European paintings, full of original strangeness, which surprises the critics. As Stiglitz had expected, the solo exhibition caused a sensation.
▲“From the River – Pale”欧姬芙 1959
O'Keeffe is like one of his pieces. For a man, this "creation" of women may inspire his instinctive sense of accomplishment more than the art of photography. For O'Keeffe, who has just entered the art world, there seems to be no choice in the face of the strength of Stiglitz, who has designed everything for her. Since then, Stiglitz has become her full voice for communication with the outside world, including her letters. She only paints with peace of mind.
Stiglitz decided to divorce his rich wife; four years later, he and O'Keeffe moved to Lake George, New York.
▲Lake George, New York
In the garden on the shores of Lake George in New York, Eugeve has been witnessing the bloom of flowers and harvests for many years, and even fell in love with flower planting, with the help of gardeners, O'Keeffe has successfully planted a batch of dwarf morning glory. The inspiration for 1924's Morning Glory 2 came from this idyllic time:
▲ "Morning Glory 2" Eugeve
The lilac morning glory is centered at the bottom, clearly visible with its iconic star-shaped flowers. Soft, outward-extending lines are the pistils of the petals. Another morning glory floats in the air, like the sun climbing to the top of the mountain at sunrise, reflecting the morning light that is sometimes lilac and sometimes light blue.
By admiring O'Keeffe's flowers, you can have a unique experience beyond flower viewing, as if you were experiencing four seasons with a flower, or you can harvest a different mood from just one flower. Regarding the use of color, Eugeve said:
"Maybe in terms of the color of the painting, I can convey to you my experience of flowers, or at that particular time, let the flowers have a meaningful experience for me."
In 1924's "Red Cannabis", the red, yellow and orange reflected in the close-up petals release a steady stream of vitality, like the warm sunshine in nature in summer and autumn:
▲ "Red Cannabis" O'Keeffe
As hot as the cannabis, there is 1927's "Red Poppy". The viewer's gaze follows the poppy's bright orange petals forward, all the way to the black end point of the eye, and can find the poppy's core; the velvety texture of the core is like an invitation from a mysterious dinner, and it is like a black hole, swallowing the viewer's gaze and unable to escape.
▲ "Red Poppy" Eugeve
Black also has a fatal appeal to O'Keeffe:
"There's something about black that makes you think it's hiding something."
In 1926, O'Keeffe created "Black Iris" with black as the main body:
▲ "Black Iris" Eugeve
The intensity of the poppy and the mystery of the iris carry O'Keeffe's different emotional experiences of life; for the quiet moments in life, O'Keeffe's "Mandala" presents a unique and elegant image:
▲ "Mandala" O'Keeffe
Mandala is a toxin-containing plant whose beauty envelops this poisonous flower with a layer of sweet honey. The first time Eugeve discovered them near her home in New Mexico, she began another theme of continuous creation, in which she depicted the plant from different angles on several occasions:
▲ Other works in the Mandala series O'Keeffe
Since the mandala blooms at sunset, the artist explains that she can almost feel the "coolness and sweetness of the night". In her depiction, the toxicity of the mandala translates into the sublime, leaving one to leave the prejudices about it and to see it only as a beautiful plant.
At sotheby's in New York in 2014, one of the mandalas created by O'Keeffe sold for $44.4 million, breaking the record for a work of art created by a female artist, making her one of the top artists of the 20th century on the international market.
However, how to interpret these flowers, a rift appeared between Stiglitz and O'Keeffe.
For anyone unfamiliar with Georgia O'Keeffe's art, just searching the Internet for three keywords — Georgia, O'Keeffe, and Flowers — can yield a surprising array of metaphors.
▲ The flower of Eugeve, which is regarded as a female sexual characteristic
Often, these metaphors include female sexual characteristics, like something naturally bound together.
But did this metaphor come from O'Keeffe herself?
If not, how did this view begin to override other views, especially when we think of the artists themselves rejecting it?
It was Stiglitz who first raised the idea that O'Keeffe's flowers symbolize female sexuality.
Long before they got married, Stiglitz introduced O'Keeffe into his art scene. The circle included the British psychologist Havelock Ellis, the American photographer Paul Schlender, and others, who read Sigmund Freud and other popular literature on sex and psychology, and regarded the sexual themes in their works as a means of expression, declaring that they belonged to the avant-garde.
Stiglitz was deeply influenced and began to associate O'Keeffe's flowers with the metaphorical nature of female sexuality. O'Keeffe's 1923 work Gray Lines and Black, Blue, and Yellow combines precise depictions, undulating folds, and clear three-dimensional forms that are thought to suggest depictions of plants and female anatomy.
▲ "Gray Line and Black, Blue, Yellow" Eugeve
A series of flowers that O'Keeffe began to create steadily in the mid-20th century became representatives of femininity, and she herself did not do housework, did not have children, did not accept the "Stiglitz Lady" and only wore black, and was regarded as an idol by feminists. Especially in the 1970s, feminists believed that O'Keeffe's work empowered women and was a clear statement of female agency in the art world.
At this point, O'Keeffe's flowers become a battleground for interpretations of gender antagonisms:
The spectacular formats, visually striking colors and almost erotic allegories caused a great uproar among the public and critics.
However, most of the outside world's interpretations of her work do not agree. Her true intentions may be revealed in a photograph of her life taken by O'Keeffe's husband, which shows Eugeve half-crouched by a small flower on the side of the road with a pile of painting tools in her hand:
▲ O'Keeffe
She once said:
"The flowers are relatively small. Everyone can relate to a flower, such as you can touch it with your hand, lean forward to smell it, and pluck it to please others. However, in a way, no one sees a flower, really — it's so small. I'll paint it big and they'll be surprised to spend time looking at it... I want you to take the time to see what I see. ”
Eugeve depicts them in a close-up approach, bringing with it subtle details and forms of each flower. As she later explained, she wanted to give every busy urbanite the time to slowly appreciate a flower and share her unique sensory experience of nature.
▲ "White Lotus" Eugeve
In 1939, O'Keeffe was invited to Hawaii by the Dole Pineapple Company to paint for an advertising campaign on the island. After visiting Maui, Oahu, Hawaii and Kauai, she created about 20 paintings depicting the archipelago's rich natural beauty, depicting striking canyons, waterfalls and tropical flowers, including a work called "Hibiscus Frangipani":
▲ "Hibiscus Frangipani" Eugeve
Against the backdrop of the clear blue sky, pink and yellow petals soar into the clouds, and delicate flowers transform into symbols of immortality. O'Keeffe does make people notice the inconspicuous flowers, and transmits the extraordinary beauty of nature and the praise of the weak little creatures to farther away.
* Article image from the web