Georgia O'Keeffe at Tate Modern - a review of the exhibition reviews

The Georgia O'Keeffe exhibition - which includes the most expensive painting by a woman sold at auction - opened at Tate Modern last week.

Tate Modern presents the largest retrospective of modernist painter Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986) ever to be shown outside of America. Tate

I'm a huge fan of her work but have not been to see it yet. So I thought I'd do a round-up of:

• the reviews to see what the general conclusions are so far.  I'm actually amazed at the number of so-called serious art journals etc who have ignored this exhibition
• all my previous blog posts about Georgia O'Keeffe - following an intensive study of her work - which are listed at the end of this post.

The exhibition is on until 30 October 2016 and is open daily 10.00 – 18.00 and until 22.00 on Friday and Saturday. For more information about the Tate or the exhibition For public information call +44 (0)20 7887 8888, visit tate.org.uk, follow @tate #Tate2016

Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 1932 by Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986)

(Oil paint on canvas 48 x 40 inches) 

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Arkansas, USA

Photography by Edward C. Robison III

© 2016 Georgia O'Keeffe Museum/DACS, London

This is said to be "the most expensive painting by a woman"
- it sold at Sotheby's for $44.4 million in 2014

Media response

I've included a quotation from each review which attempts to indicate the tenor of the review.  I've put the RECOMMENDED reads first.

Watch out for the tired old cliches about female anatomy used by some.

“When people read erotic symbols in my paintings, they’re really talking about their own affairs,” she said.

UK Media

• RECOMMENDED: BBC - Georgia O'Keeffe's work at Tate Modern - a picture biased review with access to more pics than those released
• RECOMMENDED: The Independent - Georgia O'Keeffe, Tate Modern, review: 'an extraordinary show, long overdue' by Karen Wright. I was two third through before I realised that she had visited New Mexico and knew the landscape and her appreciation of O'Keeffe's work is original and genuine.

The major retrospective of Georgia O’Keeffe’s work that opened this week at Tate Modern in London is a rare opportunity for British viewers to engage with this revered American artist.

• The Telegraph - 
• RECOMMENDED: How Georgia O'Keeffe left her cheating husband for a mountain: 'God told me if I painted it enough, I could have it' by Alastair Sooke. This is a biographical note - and rather a good one - which was published in advance of the opening.

A new exhibition of paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe will shine a light on an odd, obsessive artist

• Georgia O’Keeffe at Tate Modern: more than flesh by Louisa Buck - very tiresome (and lazy) focus on "sensuality". She needs to try visiting New Mexico as I have.

her highly suggestive studies of the swelling hills, rocks and canyons of the New Mexican landscape which she first visited in the late 1920s and where she moved permanently in 1949. There is also a curvaceous physicality to her numerous studies of the bleached animal skulls and bones that she gathered in the desert.

• RECOMMENDED: Evening Standard - Georgia O'Keeffe at the Tate Modern: Why she matters - a simple and straightforward explanation of why this exhibition matters. Great for the uninitiated!

She used art to overcome her husband’s infidelity before Beyonce did

• The Financial Times - Georgia O’Keeffe at Tate Modern by: Jackie Wullschlager. This review places her work in a biographical context and gives a tad too much emphasis to Steiglitz who after all is context and not the subject.

Tate Modern’s superb new retrospective, the largest ever devoted to O’Keeffe outside America, is a once-in-a-generation chance to explore a figure entirely absent from British collections.

• The Guardian -
• Georgia O'Keeffe at Tate Modern review – one long, strange trip by Adrian Searle

This blockbuster retrospective seeks to show there is more to Georgia O’Keeffe than anodyne prints, signature aprons and sexual stereotypes – but her own gorgeous, awkward art compounds the cliches

• Georgia O’Keeffe at Tate Modern review – the sensuous and the dust-dead by Laura Cuming - who doesn't appear to be a fan. She seems to focus more on what she doesn't like and what isn't included. Very odd.

after such a long wait for a British retrospective, this one is peculiarly disappointing, not least because it is padded out with numerous photographs and flaccid paintings.

• Time Out - Georgia O'Keeffe - awards 4*

In the art world, women are simply worth less. And not just financially. Throughout art history women have consistently been ignored. But modernism would be an entirely different beast without O’Keeffe.

• Culture Whisper - Georgia O'Keeffe, Tate Modern - awards 4* and asks where are all the flowers and then  points out that they are but a small part of her total output.

Revelatory it certainly is for those who thought O’Keeffe was either brazenly or innocently preoccupied with painting sexually suggestive flowers: they make up less than 5% of O’Keeffe’s artistic output.

• Artlyst - Georgia O’Keeffe Retrospective Explores Founding Figure of American Modernism - Preview - a preview post - and hasn't bothered with a proper review.
• ArtNet News - nothing
• BlouinArtinfo - nothing 

American media

• Wall Street Journal - The Real Meaning of Georgia O’Keeffe’s Flowers - Look at this one for the fabulous images of the flowers. It does include a fabulous quote!

O’Keeffe, for her part, found the emphasis on her gender overblown. As early as 1922, she was peeved. “They make me seem like some strange unearthly sort of creature floating in the air—breathing in clouds for nourishment—when the truth is that I like beef steak—and I like it rare.”

• El Paso Times - Georgia O'Keeffe gets big London show - I don't often have cause to quote this one! I liked the openening sentence - the remainder seems to be culled from the press release and previously published material.

Georgia O’Keeffe has come to London, like a bracing American desert wind rippling the River Thames.

More about Georgia O'Keeffe

Back in 2007 I spent a month doing research about the life and work and development of artwork by Georgia O'Keeffe. In part this came from having visited New Mexico and the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe ten years ago - in July 2006.

 Travels with a Sketchbook: 22nd July - Santa Fe and Georgia O'Keeffe is about my visit to the Georgia O'Keeffe museum in Santa Fe. I'd been wanting to go to the museum for a very long time - on the basis that you can't beat seeing art 'up close and personal' as an aid to understanding art - and was not disappointed!

The remainder are blog posts on Making A Mark - starting with the most recent

Portrait photograph of Georgia O'Keeffe
by Alfred Stieglitz in 1918.

• Georgia O'Keeffe - 125th Birthday (2012) - Georgia O'Keeffe was born on 15 November 1887 in a farmhouse near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. She died, age 98 in Santa Fe on March 6, 1986. Ignore the reference to my website which is offline but do take a look at the video of Georgia O'Keeffe talking about her work.
• Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Photography Competition (2012) - A reflection on how learning about Georgia O'Keeffe changed how I photographed flowers. Overview of the terms and conditions of entry
• Georgia O'Keeffe's birthday is 15 November (2011)

What I didn't realise at the time (because I didn't do the maths!) was that although she decided she wanted to become an artist age 10, she actually didn't become a full-time artist until she was in her fourth decade.

• Making A Mark Reviews - Book Review: Georgia O'Keeffe and New Mexico (2010)
• The Art of the Landscape - Georgia O'Keeffe's landscapes of northern New Mexico (2010)
• Georgia O'Keeffe month: "O'Keeffe" by Britta Benke - The book focuses on her life, her artistic career and the development of her artistic practice. Published by Taschen.
• Georgia O'Keeffe Month: Learning about Notan #3 - reflects on personal experience of trying to put theory into practice
• Georgia O'Keeffe Month: Learning about Notan #2 - Not specifically about O'Keeffe's work but the understanding gained definitely relates to her work
• Georgia O'Keeffe Month: Learning about Notan #1 - This is about trying to get to grips with Notan - using "Composition" the book by Arthur Wesley Dow, first published in 1899, which was Georgia O'Keeffe's bible when she went through the same process.
• Georgia O'Keeffe Month: Cactus and quotations (June 2007) - Includes some of my favourite quotations by O'Keeffe

"Nothing is less real than realism...details are confusing...it is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis that we get at the real meaning of things"
Georgia O'Keeffe 1976

• Georgia O'Keeffe month: Two white irises (and three buds) (June 2007) Includes my conclusions about her flower paintings following a read of "Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Collections (Volume 2)" by Barbara Buhler Lynes at Kew Gardens. 
• Georgia O'Keeffe Month: Macro Flowers (June 2007) - beginning a month spent studying the artwork of Georgia O'Keeffe. If you ever want to get to know an artist I highly recommend spending an intensive month getting to know their work.