O'Keeffe's O'Keeffes: The Artist's Collection

By Barbara Buhler Lynes and Barbara Buhler Lynes & Russell Bowman

Book Overview

The first exploration of the art that Georgia O'Keeffe retained for herpersonal collection, including works that have never been publiclyexhibited. Georgia O'Keeffe was one of America's preeminent artists and one of the first to experiment with abstract form, though she never abandoned her deep response to and observation of nature. An enormously popular artist, she became identified and respected as an independent American spirit through both her art and her life. At the time of her death in 1986, Georgia O'Keeffe owned more than half of the approximately 2,000 works she had produced during the eighty years she was active as an artist: some 400 works in oil, charcoal, pastel, pencil, and watercolor, as well as more than 700 sketches. For various reasons, she had always kept a portion of her art out of the public eye and these works were not published, exhibited, or available for purchase during her lifetime. Among the works that had been exhibited and sold over the years, some were repurchased by O'Keeffe as they became available. This book explores for the first time the significance of O'Keeffe's collection of her own work. Approximately 75 seminal works, dating from about 1910 through the 1960s and reproduced in full color, document the range and quality of the art that O'Keeffe either chose to retain in her estate or consciously distributed to institutions in her lifetime and as bequests. It reveals her thinking in relation to her oeuvre, providing a unique perspective from which to understand O'Keeffe as artist and collector. The book accompanies an exhibition organized by the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, the principal recipients to date of art from the O'Keeffe estate. The exhibition coincides with the opening of the Milwaukee Art Museum's major addition designed by noted Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0500092990
• ISBN13: 9780500092996
• Release Date: May 2001
• Publisher: Thames & Hudson
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 3.12 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 9.4" x 12.4"

Customer Reviews

Georgia O'Keefe Book

This is an excellent gift for someone who wants the art but also a little bit of background. Nicely done.

Good overview of OKeeffe's work

This is a great overview of OKeeffe's work. I love her desert work and recommend this coffee table book which is full of her work.

Seventy-five seminal works reproduced in full color

Georgia O'Keeffe died in 1986 owning more than half the approximately two thousand works she had produced during the eighty years she was active as an artist. Four hundred of those works were oils, charcoals, pastels, pencils, and watercolors. Additionally there were more than seven hundred sketches in her personal collection. O'Keeffe's O'Keeffes: The Artist's Collection explores and showcases the significance of Georgia O'Keeffe's collection of her own work and comprises seventy-five seminal works reproduced in full color and dating from around 1910 down through the 1960s. Unique, impressive, O'Keeffe's O'Keeffes is an essential volume for students of American art history in general, and the life and work of Georgia O'Keeffe in particular.