Support H-Net | Buy Books Here | Help Support the NBN and NBN en Español on Patreon | Visit New Books Network en Español!
- African Studies
- African American Studies
- American Politics
- American Studies
- American South
- American West
- Asian American Studies
- Australian and New Zealand Studies
- British Studies
- Canadian Studies
- Caribbean Studies
- Central Asian Studies
- Chinese Studies
- East Asian Studies
- Eastern European Studies
- European Politics
- French Studies
- German Studies
- Iberian Studies
- India Studies
- Indian Ocean World
- Iranian Studies
- Irish Studies
- Israel Studies
- Italian Studies
- Japanese Studies
- Korean Studies
- Latino Studies
- Latin American Studies
- Mexican Studies
- Middle Eastern Studies
- Native American Studies
- Pacific Studies
- Polish Studies
- Russian and Eurasian Studies
- Southeast Asian Studies
- South Asian Studies
- Turkish Studies
- Ukrainian Studies
- Western European Studies
- World Affairs
- Animal Studies
- Anthropology
- Archaeology
- Business, Management, and Marketing
- Media
- Critical Theory
- Disability Studies
- Drugs, Addiction and Recovery
- Education
- Economics
- Finance
- Geography
- Gender Studies
- Genocide Studies
- Higher Education
- Human Rights
- Journalism
- Language
- Law
- LGBTQ+ Studies
- National Security
- Philanthropy
- Philosophy
- Policing, Incarceration, and Reform
- Political Science
- Politics & Polemics
- Public Policy
- Sex, Sexuality, and Sex Work
- Sociology
- Sound Studies
- Sports
- Urban Studies
- Big Ideas
- Celebration Studies
- Co-Authored
- Cover Story
- Historical Materialism
- History Ex Silo
- Interpretive Political and Social Science
- Invested Investor
- Landscape Architecture
- Late Antiquity
- Mormonism
- NBN Book of the Day
- NBN Seminar
- Postscript: Conversations on Politics and Political Science
- Practical History
- Preparing for Life After Grad School
- Psychology and Climate Change
- Syriac Studies
- The Chair: In The Room at the Fed
- New Books with Miranda Melcher
Dec 17, 2016
Georgia O'Keeffe
Watercolors, 1916-1918
Summary
In "Georgia O'Keeffe: At Home in the Wonderful Nothing," a text accompanying the exhibition catalogue Georgia O'Keeffe: Watercolors 1916-1918 (Radius Books and the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, 2016), Amy Von Lintel investigates a lesser studied period in O'Keeffe's life and work: the artist's time in West Texas. In 1916, at the age of twenty-eight, O'Keeffe moved to Canyon, Texas to accept a position as founding faculty of the West Texas State Normal College. O'Keeffe had first journeyed to West Texas in 1912 to teach in the newly founded Amarillo City Public School District. During her time in Canyon, she produced 51 watercolors (46 of which are reproduced in the book), characterized by a level of experimentation that foreshadows her later work. The dry, flat lands of the region, and the stark horizons with their dramatic shadows and sunsets, appealed to O'Keeffe.
From 1916-1918, she used watercolor to render landscapes, abstract images, and nude studies of her own body while learning to live in an American West so different from other parts of the United States. Some of the watercolors were shown by Alfred Stieglitz at the 291 Gallery in New York City but O'Keeffe kept many of them in her private collection for the duration of her life. Von Lintel's discussion of O'Keeffe is framed by the author's study of letters and records from the O'Keeffe archive at Yale University's Beinecke Library made available in 1986, as well as correspondence between O'Keeffe and Stieglitz released in 2006. O'Keeffe's observations are carefully documented throughout the text and offer insight into her personality and aesthetic ideas. Von Lintel also introduces readers to O'Keeffe as a teacher, another part of the artist's identity that took form in the influential Texas years.
Kirstin L. Ellsworth has a Ph.D. in the History of Art from Indiana University (2005) and currently, is an Assistant Professor of Art History at California State University Dominguez Hills. Email: kellsworth@csudh.edu.
Kirstin L. Ellsworth has a Ph.D. in the History of Art from Indiana University (2005) and currently, is an Assistant Professor of Art History at California State University Dominguez Hills. Email: kellsworth@csudh.edu.
Related Topics
Your Host
Kirstin Ellsworth
Kirstin L. Ellsworth holds a Ph.D. in the History of Art from Indiana University and is Associate Professor of Art History at California State University Dominguez Hills.
