Georgia O'Keeffe

O’Keeffe by Britta Benke

Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986)

The Coronation of Poppea - One of the many classical pieces Georgia O’Keeffe would listen to. Music research cited from Nell Shaw Cohen

I first purchased this TASCHEN book to casually peruse as a coffee table book. I genuinely did not expect the quality of print and writing that made this overview of Georgia O’Keeffe so astounding. I was touched, immensely, by both the artist’s personal journey and creative expressions as she navigated an art world that was as exclusive as it was elusive.

White Iris No.7 (1957)

Oil on canvas. 102 x 76.2 cm

Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

I only had a cursory view of Georgia O’Keeffe, primarily in her beautiful, larger-than-life flowers, leaning heavily towards female sensuality and eroticism. Britta Benke dissipated these notions as critics’ imposition on O’Keeffe with her factual reporting and even, tempered writing style. I was instead taken into the portraits and canvases, where O’Keeffe emerged as a defiant woman ahead of her time; who charged elegantly (yes, she felt contradicting yet harmonious) into the American Art scene, and painted her own place. She was unconstrained by classical methods, forged her own path—photography, music, spirituality swirled into an art of her own making.

“I said to myself, I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me—shapes and ideas so near to me—so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn’t occurred to me to put them down. I decided to start anew—to strip away what I had been taught—to accept as true my own thinking. […] I was alone and singularly free , working into my own, unknown—no one to satisfy but myself.”

I saw in Benke’s writing the O’Keeffe who knew her power and her roots; she was not afraid to light a fire when needed, especially towards those who tried to tell her what her own art was about.

“Well—I made you take time to look at what I saw and when you took time to really notice my flower you hung all your own associations with flowers on my flower and you write about my flower as if I think and see what you think and see the flower—and I don’t.”

Cow's Skull with Calico Roses (1932)

Oil on canvas, 91.4 x 61 cm

The Art Institute of Chicago

In these wonderfully vibrant paintings, well-printed and captured in this TASCHEN book, Georgia O’Keeffe and her art works seemed grand and exquisite at the same time. Benke succeeded in her ambition to extract O’Keeffe’s overarching life while bringing in subtle details that allowed the reader to connect with the meaning and story behind each piece of O’Keeffe’s arduous works.

Georgia O’Keeffe pictured with her Red with Yellow (1945)

Analysis on Pelvis Series | Georgia O’Keeffe Museum

Through the lens of this book, I feel transformed and inspired. Georgia O’Keeffe’s art is spiritual, emotional, and intuitive—she deftly captured shapes and forms while simultaneously evoked abstract emotions, distilled the essence, so that viewers might be encouraged to look beyond colours, to dive deeper into the stories the artist wished to convey. Her art is eternal: there is a depth, an emotional connection, which folds together the pages of the universe, the scenery, the viewer, and the artist—all together in one book, one canvas.