Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern

In West Palm Beach, Florida, the Norton Museum of Art is currently showing “Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern,” through February 2, 2020. First organized by the Brooklyn Museum in 2017, and as part of a major national tour, the exhibition takes a new look at how the renowned modernist artist created her public image through what she wore and how she allowed herself to be photographed.

The focus on O’Keeffe’s wardrobe shown alongside key paintings and photographs confirms and explores the artist’s determination to be in charge of how the world understood her identity and artistic values. In addition to selected paintings and items of clothing, the exhibition presents photographs of O’Keeffe and her homes by Alfred Stieglitz, Ansel Adams, Annie Leibovitz, Philippe Halsman, Yousuf Karsh, Cecil Beaton, Andy Warhol, Bruce Weber, Todd Webb, and others.

The show demonstrates how O’Keeffe, early on, fashioned a signature style of dress, which evolved during her years in New York when a black-and-white palette dominated much of her art and wardrobe, and then during her time in New Mexico, where her art and clothing changed in response to the colors of the Southwestern landscape.

The exhibition includes nearly 200 objects on loan from the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, the Brooklyn Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, and other lenders. In addition to selected paintings – including one from the Norton’s collection — and clothing, there are striking photographs of O’Keeffe taken by Alfred Stieglitz, Ansel Adams, Philippe Halsman, Cecil Beaton, Andy Warhol, Bruce Weber, and other renowned artists. These pictures helped solidify O’Keeffe’s status as a pioneer of modernism and a contemporary style icon.

“Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern” is organized by the Brooklyn Museum, with guest curator Wanda M. Corn, Robert and Ruth Halperin Professor Emerita in Art History, Stanford University, and coordinated at the Norton Museum of Art by Ellen E. Roberts, Harold and Anne Berkley Smith Curator of American Art.

Learn more at norton.org.

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