Friday, January 1, 2010

Georgia O'Keeffe exhibition

My friend took me to the Whitney Museum of Art and we saw an exhibition of Georgia O'Keeffe's work. There was some beautiful work there.
There was some of her early work in charcoal, moving to oil paintings and watercolours. It made us reflect about what it is that someone sees in an artist's work that makes it obvious that the artist is talented and should be encouraged. Perhaps there are many artists out there who just do not receive the boost at quite the right time and whose development is not encouraged as hers was. Or perhaps those with the drive and talent will shine no matter what.
One thing that stood out for me was the series that moved from fairly realistic images to much more abstract ones, of the same subject matter.
It was very crowded! But we were able to move around easily and see the works clearly. I especially liked her work of flowers.
It is interesting to read about her innovation of cropping an image, inspired by photographic work. These days images of this sort are often seen and it is enlightening to see something that was so innovative in its time.
We decided not to look at any of the other exhibitions at the Whitney as we just wanted to contemplate the works of Georgia O'Keeffe, not be distracted by other artists' work.

1 comment:

parlance said...

I agree about the idea of looking at the work of only one artist. It's all too easy to get 'gallery fatigue' if you look at too much, and by looking at only the one artist you focus your sense of appreciation.