Customer Reviews

Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Collection

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For those of us not fortunate enough to be going to Santa Fe this year for the celebration of the tenth anniversary of the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum (which houses the largest collection of her work), here is an able substitute. Those who have visited the Museum in the past will relish this opportunity to revisit not only her art but her houses at Ghost Ranch and in Abiqiu, New Mexico.

It need not be said that O'Keeffe is a preeminent artist of the twentieth century, one of the most respected and loved. An American modernist she is acclaimed for her compelling abstractions, so elegant and vital. Her visions are often enlarged. Inspired by the natural she once said, "When I found the beautiful white bones in the desert I picked them up and took them home too...I have used these things to say what is to me the wideness and wonder of the world as I live in it."

This gorgeous volume is rich with illustrations - 335 in full color and two eight-page gatefolds. It also includes numerous photos, some previously unpublished, and works by others who embraced modernism and painted in New Mexico.

Curator of the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, author Barbara Buhler Lynes is the leading authority on this artist. She has done a meritorious yeoman's task in compiling this glorious volume which is a treasure for all.

- Gail Cooke

This is a HUGE, beautiful book which features some of Georgie O'Keeffe's most stunning works.

The book is 12"x 10" and as thick as a dictionary, if not thicker. I was surprised by the heft of it.

The entire book (besides a few pages of introductory text) is comprised of large, full-color plates of O'Keeffe's most luminous works. There are over 300 plates in all. The pages are super-thick and glossy, and there are several "fold out" pages to provide an even closer look at some of the works of art. The color is bright and vibrant.

Note: One reviewer commented that there was too much "white space" around the images- I completely disagree. The images are made as large as possible and often cover the entire page, save a small white border around the image. Some of O'Keeffe's images are either horizontal in orientation or very long and tall; therefore, the only way to get the entire image on a page without distorting it, cropping it, or turning it is to surround it with *some* kind of border. However, the images are as large as possible- there are no "postage stamp" size images.

This is truly a generous offering of O'Keeffe's entire career. It's one of those art books that makes me feel lucky to own. It's really beautiful.

Georgia O'Keeffe would have loved this book! Not only does Barbara Buhler Lynes, curator of Santa Fe's Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, respect her subject's astonishing eye and craftsmanship in this book, she respects Ms. O'Keeffe's wishes regarding displaying her works of art. During her lifetime, the artist often mounted her own shows, e.g., at An American Place, her husband Alfred Stieglitz's gallery in New York. Ms. O'Keeffe was adamant (a) that her creations be hung on white walls, and (b) that her artwork be arranged by type rather than chronology.

Lynes abides by both of the artist's rules here to great effect, and her meticulousness, in terms of the notes she provides about the artist's work and also the tags she associates with the plates (where she identifies the type and size of the surface used and also the type of medium: charcoal, graphite, oil, watercolor), add another layer of enjoyment for the reader.

Lynes' notes attempt to steer the reader away from stereotypical interpretations that haunted Ms. O'Keeffe during her career. For instance, regarding "Blue II" (Plate 3, Page 19), the curator states: "The . . . womblike spiral of 'Blue II' seems to substantiate connections critics in the 1920's made between O'Keeffe's work and female sexuality. Yet when she made this watercolor, O'Keeffe was intensely involved in playing the violin, and . . . the form . . . of the spiral in her watercolor most likely derive[s] from the scroll-shaped termination of the neck of the instrument . . ."

Categories in the book include abstractions, still lifes, architecture, animal and human forms, and trees. Every reader will find his or her favorite here; mine are the artist's representations of feathery kachina dolls and New Mexico's Pedernal. The last category in the book contains works by other artists at the museum whose careers, in some way, parallelled that of Ms. O'Keeffe. Stieglitz photographs (including a Georgia O'Keeffe nude) are here, as well as Ansel Adams' memorable "gelatin silver print" of Georgia O'Keeffe and Orville Cox at Canyon de Chelly National Park.

I flipped through this book at Barnes and Noble, and was frustrated to find that while the pages were large, the prints were tiny! Just a few inches across, usually. Anyone planning on buying this should know.

In contrast to a previous review which said the reproductions in this book are very small, I don't agree. It's a large book, and most of the reproductions are decent-sized and good quality.
Along with the wonderful reproductions of Georgia O'Keeffe's paintings are some very nice photographs of her. This book isn't heavy on text, but what there is, I found valuable in interpreting the paintings.
I'd recommend this book highly for any O'Keeffe fans.

Georgia O'Keeffe was more than an artist, she was a women way beyond her time. Exceptional pictures and writings.