Spring

Georgia O'KeeffeWW-1923-022667

1923·Oil on canvas·45.7 × 35.4 cm (18 × 14 in.)

<p>In <em>Spring</em>, Georgia O’Keeffe painted the small building that housed her husband Alfred Stieglitz’s darkroom in Lake George, New York. The couple often treated the same subjects in their art, and Stieglitz photographed this building the same year, choosing a snowy day. Here, O’Keeffe selected a springtime view, employing lush pastel colors for the abundant flowering trees. She also made changes that emphasize her artistic choices as a painter: she simplified the architecture by omitting the house’s chimney, window, and horizontal siding; and she enlarged and curved the flagpole, accentuating the picture’s vertical format.</p>

Catalogue

Year: 1923
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 45.7 × 35.4 cm (18 × 14 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Georgia O'Keeffe

Artist

Georgia O'Keeffe

Painting

One of the most successful artists of the 20th century, Georgia O’Keeffe enjoyed a long and varied artistic career in which she introduced many new aesthetic perspectives and approaches in Modernism. Born in Wisconsin in 1887, she studied at the Art Institute of Chicago beginning in 1905 before taking teaching position in South Carolina, Virginia and Texas. She moved to New York City in 1918 at the age of 31 where she became part of the artistic milieu of her future husband photographer Alfred Stieglitz. In these years, she became fascinated with the fast pace of city life and produced paintings highlighting the city’s soaring skyscrapers as symbols of the modern world.

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