Saturday, July 28, 2018

Georgia O'Keeffe: Living Modern Hardcover – March 3, 2017 by Wanda M. Corn (Prestel)



One of the best books about O'Keeffe, Author Corn has finally addressed the Art is Life/Life is Art main point about this remarkable American artist. Every book and article I've read on O'Keeffe since the 1960's, every exhibit I've seen, my visits to Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch, and the obvious relationship between the artist, her work, her environments, and her personal aesthetic comes together here ~ finally ~ in text, photos, and reproductions of her art. I will see the Brooklyn Museum exhibit of her work, clothing, and paintings in a few weeks, but this book is a good substitute in case one cannot see the exhibit. The book refreshingly and thoroughly discusses her refined and natural personal aesthetic, minus the dramatic details of her life that so often dominate her story. If you want drama, there are other better books for you. But if you want to see how a life slides smoothly in and out of the art it creates, to the point of a clear and thorough union, here is your tome, so satisfying. The text is very readable to a non-artist, the reproductions beautiful, and it contains photographs I had never seen before. This book is a must-have for anyone who loves her work and is fascinated by her as a creative person.

his book explores how Georgia O’Keeffe lived her life steeped in modernism, bringing the same style she developed in her art to her dress, her homes, and her lifestyle. Richly illustrated with images of her art and views of the two homes she designed and furnished in New Mexico, the book also includes never before published photographs of O’Keeffe’s clothes. The author has attributed some of the most exquisite of these garments to O’Keeffe, a skilled seamstress who understood fabric and design, and who has become an icon in today’s fashion world as much for her personal style as for her art. As one of her friends stated, O’Keeffe "never allowed her life to be one thing and her painting another." This fresh and carefully researched study brings O’Keeffe’s style to life, illuminating how this beloved American artist purposefully proclaimed her modernity in the way she dressed and posed for photographers, from Alfred Stieglitz to Bruce Weber. This beautiful book accompanies the first museum exhibition to bring together photographs, clothes, and art to explore O’Keeffe’s unified modernist aesthetic.


This book accompanied the show at the Peabody-Essex Museum, Georgia O’Keeffe: Art, Image, Style.


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