Georgia O’Keeffe: To See Takes Time

Recalling a charcoal she made in 1916, Georgia O'Keeffe later wrote, “I have made this drawing several times—never remembering that I had made it before—and not knowing where the idea came from.” These drawings, and the majority of O’Keeffe’s works in charcoal, watercolor, pastel and graphite, belong to series in which she develops and transforms motifs that lie between observation and abstraction. In the formative years of 1915 to 1918, she made as many works on paper as she would in the next 40 years, producing sequences in watercolor of abstract lines, organic landscapes and nudes, along with charcoal drawings she would group according to the designation “specials.” While her practice turned increasingly toward canvas in subsequent decades, important series on paper reappeared—including charcoal flowers of the 1930s, portraits of the 1940s and aerial views of the 1950s.
Published in conjunction with an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, this richly illustrated volume highlights the drawings of an artist better known as a painter, and reunites individual sheets with their contextual series to illuminate O’Keeffe’s persistently sequential practice.