Georgia O’Keeffe: A portrait

When Stieglitz and O’Keeffe met in 1916, Stieglitz was a leading figure in the New York art world. He was a lauded photographer, the fierce promoter and gatekeeper of American art photography, the gallerist who introduced the European avant-garde to the United States. O’Keeffe was a painter of no reputation, an art teacher in Texas. Stieglitz was twenty-five years older than she was. The two artists began an increasingly heated correspondence; O’Keeffe moved to New York City; Stieglitz began photographing her obsessively; he left his wife for his lover. Sometime before his protracted divorce finally allowed him and O’Keeffe to marry, Stieglitz made this picture of her. The low angle, the sculptural quality of her form in dark wrap and hat, nearly silhouetted against the abstracted landscape, lionize the woman who would herself become one of the most significant artists of her age. O’Keeffe’s formidable presence in the small photograph, her bearing and regard, suggest that Stieglitz’s heroic representation of her could not have been otherwise. (“Celebrating Reunion at the Johnson,” text by Kate Addleman-Frankel and presented at the Johnson Museum May 25-July 28, 2019)