Georgia O’Keeffe

To See Takes Time

Apr 9–Aug 12, 2023

MoMA

Georgia O’Keeffe. Evening Star No. III. 1917. Watercolor on paper mounted on board, 8 7/8 × 11 7/8" (22.7 × 30.4 cm). Mr. and Mrs. Donald B. Straus Fund. © 2023 Georgia O’Keeffe Museum/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
  • MoMA, Floor 3, 3 South The Edward Steichen Galleries

“To see takes time,” Georgia O’Keeffe once wrote. Best known for her flower paintings, O’Keeffe (1887–1986) also made extraordinary series of works in charcoal, pencil, watercolor, and pastel. Reuniting works on paper that are often seen individually, along with key paintings, this exhibition offers a rare glimpse of the artist’s working methods and invites us to take time to look.

Over her long career, O’Keeffe revisited and reworked the same subjects, developing, repeating, and transforming motifs that lie between observation and abstraction. Between 1915 and 1918, a breakthrough period of experimentation, she made as many works on paper as she would during the next four decades, producing progressions of bold lines, organic landscapes, and frank nudes, as well as the radically abstract charcoals she called “specials.”

Even as she turned increasingly to painting, important series—including flowers in the 1930s, portraits in the ’40s, and aerial views in the ’50s—reaffirmed her commitment to working on paper. Drawing in this way enabled O’Keeffe to capture not only nature’s forms but its rhythms: tracing the sun’s spiraling descent in vividly hued pigment, or committing to velvety black the shifting perspective as seen from an airplane window.

The exhibition is organized by Samantha Friedman, Associate Curator, Department of Drawings and Prints, with Laura Neufeld, Associate Paper Conservator, The David Booth Conservation Department, and Emily Olek, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Drawings and Prints. Realized with the participation of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe.

The exhibition is sponsored by Getty through The Paper Project initiative.

Leadership funding is provided by the Xin Zhang and Shiyi Pan Endowment Fund and the Kate W. Cassidy Foundation.

Major support is provided by The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art and by the Dian Woodner Exhibition Endowment Fund.

Generous funding is provided by the Robert Lehman Foundation.

Additional support is provided by David Bushler.

The Bloomberg Connects digital experience is made possible through the support of Bloomberg Philanthropies.

Publications

  • Georgia O’Keeffe: Abstraction Blue Paperback, 48 pages
  • Georgia O'Keeffe: To See Takes Time Exhibition catalogue, Hardcover, 180 pages
  • Master checklist 0 pages
  • Master checklist 0 pages
  • Press release 0 pages
  • Press release 0 pages
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