A new book on Georgia O’Keeffe

A visual feast of flowers, abstractions, cityscapes and landscapes from American modernism’s most iconic painter, a new book on Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986) corresponds with the traveling retrospective now on view at Spain's Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza. 

Georgia O'Keeffe, Amapolas orientales, 1927. (Oriental Poppies) Óleo sobre lienzo / Oil on canvas. 76,7 x 102,1 cm. Collection of the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota, Mineápolis. Adquisición del museo / Collection of the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Museum Purchase, 1937.1 © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum

Georgia O'Keeffe Serie I. N º 3 , 1918 / Series I — No. 3 Óleo sobre tabla / Oil on board . 50,8 × 40,64 cm Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee. Donación de la Jane Bradley Pettit Foundation y The Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation / Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee. Gift of Jane Bradley Pettit Foundation and the Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation © Milwaukee Art Museum Photograph er credit: Larry Sander

Georgia O'Keeffe Black Place I , 1944 Óleo sobre lienzo / Oil on canvas. 66 x 76,5 cm San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Donación de Charlotte M ack / San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Gift of Charlotte Mack © Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Photograph: Ben Blackwell

Georgia O'Keeffe, Puerta negra con rojo, 1954. (Black Door with Red) Óleo sobre lienzo / Oil on canvas. 121,9 x 213,4 cm. Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA. Legado de Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. / Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA. Bequest of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum

Offering a complete survey of Georgia O’Keeffe’s illustrious career, the magnificent new book (Artbook | D.A.P. July 2021) ranges from the works produced between 1910 and 1920 that made her a pioneer of abstraction to her celebrated flower paintings and views of New York, which led to her recognition as one of the key figures in modern American art, and culminating with her paintings of New Mexico.

Georgia O'Keeffe, Almeja y mejillón, 1926. (Clam and Mussel) Óleo sobre lienzo / Oil on canvas. 22,9 x 17,8 cm. Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. Donación de The Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation / Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. Gift of The Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. Photo: Courtesy of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum

Georgia O'Keeffe in New Mexico.

Cover of "Georgia O'Keeffe" (Artbook | D.A.P / Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza)

"O’Keeffe was at once global and insistently, radically local. She embraced what she termed the 'wideness and wonder of the world'and was entirely comfortable making her own place within it, however remote...now, it is her art that continues this global journey, connecting us...," writes Cody Hartley, Director of the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum.

The selection of color plates is accompanied by quotes from O’Keeffe on her art and additional photographic material pertaining to the paintings. The sense of reverence for the world and its forms emerges vividly through O’Keeffe’s words. “The unexplainable thing in nature that makes me feel the world is big far beyond my understanding—to understand maybe by trying to put it into form,” she writes. “To find the feeling of infinity on the horizon line or just over the next hill.”

Also featured are a biography and texts by contributing curators, by scholars at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe and by acclaimed French art writer Catherine Millet. Georgia O’Keeffe is published on the occasion of a major exhibition at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, on view through August 8, 2021.

Georgia O’Keeffe is organized by the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, the Centre Pompidou and the Fondation Beyeler, in partnership with the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe, New Mexico. After it has been seen in Madrid, the exhibition travels to Paris and Basel.