Georgia O'Keeffe, Works on Paper

by Barbara Haskell

This groundbreaking volume, the first to consider Georgia O’Keeffe’s works on paper, explores the media of watercolor, charcoal, pencil, and pastel. O’Keeffe, an artist of immense stature in twentieth-century art, is known primarily as a painter. However, her earliest mature works, which led to her first New York exhibitions and initial acclaim, were works on paper as well, and she resumed her intense commitment to drawing and watercolor in the 1960s and 1970s. The works on paper can be viewed in the larger context of O’Keeffe’s career as an artist. They move from stylized, flat patterning of the early charcoals to the rhapsodic organic forms and fresh uses of color in the watercolors to the tighter, more focused compositions of the later pastels, charcoals, and pencil drawings. Finally, the works on paper of the 1960s and 1970s are characterized by an extreme simplification and almost decorative flatness. Richly illustrated with thirty-one full-color plates and twenty-one duotones, accompanied by an introduction, critical essay, and biographical chronology.

Genres: Art

102 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1985

Reviews

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been a huge Georgia O'Keeffe fan for many years. It was a revelation to me that as much as I love her oil paintings (a whole lot), I think her watercolors are the best of all of her work! She has such a fresh approach in her watercolors. It's hard to explain, but it's like her watercolors have even a deeper level of truth than her oil paintings.