Georgia O'Keeffe, American, 1887–1986, Music–Pink and Blue, No. 1, 1918, oil on canvas, 35 x 29 in., Seattle Art Museum, Gift of Barney A. Ebsworth, 2000.161, photo: Paul Macapia
Editor's Note: The Seattle Art Museum closed to the public shortly after this exhibition began. Phillips remains committed to our museum partners during this challenging time, and we're pleased to share Inside "Georgia O'Keeffe: Abstract Variations". This inside look at the show, including the video below, is part of Stay Home with SAM, offering a behind-the-scenes view of the museum from home.
Phillips is proud to support Georgia O’Keeffe: Abstract Variations at the Seattle Art Museum, 5 March–28 June 2020, featuring 17 early paintings and drawings by the celebrated American artist. The installation features 10 oil paintings, including the centerpiece of the show: the pairing of Music–Pink and Blue, No. 1 (1918), a recent addition to SAM’s collection gifted by the late Barney A. Ebsworth, and Music–Pink and Blue, No. 2 (1918), on loan from the Whitney Museum of American Art. Music–Pink and Blue, No. 1 is O’Keeffe’s first major oil painting, and it is the culmination of her experimentation with abstract forms and connection to music. Abstract Variations was curated by Theresa Papanikolas, SAM’s Ann M. Barwick Curator of American Art; this is her first installation for the museum since joining in January 2019. Elizabeth Goldberg, our Deputy Chairwoman and Senior International Specialist in American Art, had the chance to speak with Dr. Papanikolas and learn more about the show.
Georgia O'Keeffe, American, 1887–1986, Music–Pink and Blue No. 2, 1918, oil on canvas, 35 x 29 15/16 in., Whitney Museum of American Art, Gift of Emily Fisher Landau in honor of Tom Armstrong, 91.90, Digital image © Whitney Museum of American Art / Licensed by Scala / Art Resource, NY
ELIZABETH GOLDBERG: The exhibition celebrates the recent acquisition of Georgia O’Keeffe’s Music–Pink and Blue, No 1. How do you see this work fitting into the museum’s larger collection?
THERESA PAPANIKOLAS: As O’Keeffe’s first major oil painting, Music–Pink and Blue, No. 1 represents a very important moment in the career of one of the 20th century’s most important American artists, and as such adds immeasurably to the museum’s collection. It joins A Celebration (1924), giving us strong representation in O’Keeffe’s early work and adding to our growing collection of early 20th-century American modernism.
Georgia O'Keeffe, American, 1887–1986, No. 8–Special (Drawing No. 8), 1916, charcoal on paper, 24 1/2 x 18 7/8 in., Whitney Museum of American Art, Purchase, with funds from the Mr. and Mrs. Arthur G. Altschul Purchase Fund, 85.52, Digital image © Whitney Museum of American Art / Licensed by Scala / Art Resource, NY
EG: O’Keeffe is celebrated as a modernist. How do you see her style developing in this painting?
TP: Music–Pink and Blue, No. 1 represents an important moment in O’Keeffe’s career. She painted it in 1918, after a three-year period of intense experimentation. In 1915, after moving to South Carolina, to join the Art Department at Columbia College, O’Keeffe decided that her practice as an artist needed a fresh start. She dispensed with the work she had been making up until then, stopped painting, and began working exclusively in charcoal. The result is a series of extraordinary works on paper that serve not to imitate nature, but to record her response to nature’s forces and their impact on her experience and emotions. Through these drawings, O’Keeffe developed the formal vocabulary—arches, swirls, squiggles, voids—that eventually found its way to Music–Pink and Blue, No. 1. The painting is her first important effort in oil on canvas and the culmination of this campaign; it also sets the direction for her work from that point forward.
EG: As you worked on this exhibition, did you find that you discovered new aspects of O’Keeffe’s work?
TP: Georgia O’Keeffe: Abstract Variations offered a rare opportunity to take a deep dive into O’Keeffe’s abstractions, and discover the connections between those works and her later, more renowned, pictures of flowers.
Alfred Stieglitz, American, 1864–1946, Georgia O'Keeffe (in a chemise), 1918, gelatin silver print, 9 1/2 x 7 1/2 in., Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Gift of the Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation, 2006.6.1432, photo: Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe / Art Resource, NY
EG: O’Keeffe’s personal story and journey as an artist feels timeless and relevant. Why do you think this is?
TP: O’Keeffe’s life and work models the successful and independent woman to which we all aspire. What is amazing is that she got her start—and persisted—at a time when opportunities for women were extremely limited, and throughout her career negotiated incredibly challenging territory, including and especially finding success in a predominately masculine artistic milieu, to live her best life.
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