Today is May Day and in the spirit of celebrating fertility, flowers and Spring I bring you Georgia O'Keeffe, photographed by Alfred Stieglitz with her painting, Flower Abstraction, 1924.
"When I make a photograph I make love." Alfred Stieglitz
Photograph of Georgia O'Keeffe, Alfred Stieglitz
Flower Abstraction, Oil on Canvas, Georgia O'Keeffe, 1924
"I decided that if I could paint that flower in a huge scale,
you could not ignore its beauty."
Georgia O'Keeffe
you could not ignore its beauty."
Georgia O'Keeffe
Painter Georgia O'Keeffe was ahead of her time in many ways including her exploration of abstraction in early twentieth century art. Sadly, the sensuality of her over-sized floral abstractions only gave her male critics ammunition to attack her. They could not see past the sex (expressions of sexuality belonged to men!). If she pointed out that it was their projection and really, she was just painting flowers, they called her prissy. If she didn't they accused her of sexual obsession. She could not win. Considering the chauvinism of the New York art world in the twentieth century it is no wonder she preferred her desert oasis in New Mexico.
