See complete image credit at the end of the release
"This is the largest group of these delicate works ever shown. Given their fragility and rarity, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity," said curator Carolyn Kastner.
Santa Fe, NM (PRWEB) March 14, 2016
A selection of rarely seen watercolors, painted by Georgia O’Keeffe during the years she lived in Canyon, Texas (1916-1918), will be on view at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum beginning April 29 through October 30, 2016.
These early watercolors, painted by O’Keeffe while she was teaching art at West Texas State Normal College (now West Texas A & M University), reveal a period of radical innovation and the defining moment in the artist’s commitment to abstraction as well as a career as a professional artist.
While living and working in Texas O’Keeffe created 51 watercolors including landscapes, abstractions, and nudes (studies of her own body). Many of the watercolors and drawings she created during her years in Texas were first shown by Alfred Stieglitz at his New York gallery “291” in 1917, bringing her early public and critical acclaim. The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum holds the majority of the art she created during this period; a large portion are gifts from The Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation and The Burnett Foundation.
Twenty-eight works will be on view, including loans from the Amarillo Museum of Art, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum and Yale University Art Gallery.
“We are thrilled to be able to bring this important body of work together in our galleries for study and comparison. This is the largest group of these delicate works ever shown. Given their fragility and rarity, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity,” said curator Carolyn Kastner.
A gorgeous catalog produced by Radius Books of Santa Fe will accompany Georgia O’Keeffe’s Far Wide Texas. Entitled Georgia O’Keeffe: Watercolors 1916-1918, the large format book reproduces 41 of the watercolors at full size. The catalog will, for the first time, allow critical comparison and serve as a lasting reference and testament to the importance of these early works in defining O’Keeffe’s artistic legacy.
An essay by Amy Von Lintel, a professor of art history at West Texas A & M University, will accompany the images to bring forth recent research and scholarship revealing the full significance of O’Keeffe’s years in Texas.
Georgia O’Keeffe: Watercolors 1916-1918 will be available at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Store(store.okeeffemusseum.org/texas-watercolors). The cost of the catalog is $60 USD.
ABOUT THE GEORGIA O’KEEFFE MUSEUM:
To inspire all current and future generations, the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum preserves, presents and advances the artistic legacy of Georgia O’Keeffe and modernism through innovative public engagement, education, and research. Opened in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1997, the Museum counts O’Keeffe’s two New Mexico homes as part of its extended collection. The Museum’s collections, exhibitions, research center, publications and educational programs contribute to scholarly discourse and serve a diverse audience. The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum presents an ongoing series of thematic galleries exploring the career of the artist through her artwork, art materials, archives, and the landscapes and experiences that defined her life, on view throughout 2017. For more information please visit okeeffemuseum.org.
Image Credit
Train at Night in the Desert, 1916
Georgia O’Keeffe
Watercolor on paper
11 7/8 x 8 7/8 (30.2 x 22.5)
Amarillo Museum of Art
Purchased with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, Amarillo Area Foundation,
Amarillo Art Alliance, The Mary Ann Weymouth Campbell Foundation, Santa Fe Industries Foundation, and Mary Fain (AM.1982.1.4)
© Amarillo Museum of Art