Peru – Machu Picchu, Morning Light

Georgia O'KeeffeWW-1957-016244

1957·Oil on canvas·61.3 × 45.8 cm (24 1/8 × 18 in.)

<p>In <em>Peru—Machu Picchu, Morning Light</em>, Georgia O’Keeffe portrayed not the remains of the 15th- century royal Inca estate but the steep side of a nearby mountain thrusting up to the sky. She admired the archaeological site, but preferred the dramatic terrain: “The great ruin of Machu Picchu . . . is in the most beautiful green sheer mountains . . . a peak rises up above the big ruin, across the river—terraced so that I wouldn’t dream of trying to go up it—it is so sheer—the mts. were to me more wonderful than the ruin.” O’Keeffe spent three months in Peru in 1956, but only painted the Peruvian landscape a few times.</p>

Catalogue

Year: 1957
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 61.3 × 45.8 cm (24 1/8 × 18 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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