Georgia O'Keeffe and New Mexico: A Sense of Place [Hardcover]

Barbara Buhler Lynes (Author), Lesley Poling-Kempes (Author), Frederick W. Turner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 4, 2004

When Georgia O'Keeffe first visited New Mexico in 1917, she was instantly drawn to the stark beauty of its unusual architectural and landscape forms. In 1929, she began spending part of almost every year painting there, first in Taos, and subsequently in and around Alcalde, Abiquiu, and Ghost Ranch, with occasional excursions to remote sites she found particularly compelling. Georgia O'Keeffe and New Mexico is the first book to analyze the artist's famous depictions of these Southwestern landscapes.

Beautifully illustrated and gracefully written, the book accompanies an exhibition of the same name at the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It reproduces the exhibition's 50 paintings and includes striking photographs of the sites that inspired them as well as diagrams of the region's distinctive geology. The book examines the magnificence of O'Keeffe's work through essays by three noted authors. Barbara Buhler Lynes, Curator of the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum and organizer of the exhibition, discusses the relationship of the artist's paintings to the places that inspired her.

Frederick Turner offers an illuminating essay contrasting O'Keeffe's fabled aloofness from the well-established art colony in Santa Fe with her intense closeness to the local landscape she so fiercely loved. Lesley Poling-Kempes furnishes a fascinating chronicle of O'Keeffe's years in the region as well as a useful explanation of the geological forces that produced the intense colors and dramatic shapes of the landscapes O'Keeffe painted.

EXHIBIT SCHEDULE:

Georgia O'Keeffe Museum

Santa Fe, New Mexico

June 11-September 12, 2004

Columbus Museum of Art

Columbus, Ohio

October 1, 2004-January 16, 2005

Albright-Knox Art Gallery

Buffalo, New York

January 28-May 08, 2005

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

What sets this book apart from other small exhibition catalogues of O’Keeffe’s work is the set of side-by-side comparisons of 20 paintings with recent, commissioned, full-color photos of their actual sites, which pinpoint the exact perspective of the paintings. Lynes (Georgia O’Keeffe: Catalogue Raisonne) is curator of Santa Fe’s Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, and director of the research center there. In walking around "O’Keeffe country," reading the letters and studying the sites, Lynes discovered that such photos would be possible to make. She presents photos and paintings beautifully here in the essay that begins the book, and that leads to two sections of paintings that use figuration and abstraction to give (famously) "A Sense of Place." A second essay, by scholar Leslie Poling-Kempes, breaks O’Keeffe’s cliff and rock faces into their geological strata, showing where Triassic gives way to Jurassic, and Jurrassic to Cretaceous. There are 66 lush color plates in all, and 11 b&w reproductions, mostly of work from the 1930s.
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Review

The illustrations are beautifully reproduced, and the book's three essays are intelligent, carefully researched, and elegantly presented. -- Roxana Robinson, The Wilson Quarterly



In her meticulous account, Lesley Poling-Kempes discusses the geophysical origins of this land of 'extremes and contrast,' analyzing the layered stone formations and matching them up with O'Keeffe's keen observations of red shales, sandshales and silt stones created 200 million years ago. . . . Frederich W. Turner steps more intimately into O'Keeffe's preserve, discussing her eccentricities, her remoteness from others sharing the land . . . and the mythology she did much to create. . . . Once installed in New Mexico, though, she became an authentic new conquistador, he concludes, and entered her true final domain. -- Dore Ashton, Times Literary Supplement

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press; 3rd edition (May 4, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691116598
• ISBN-13: 978-0691116594
• Product Dimensions: 10.6 x 9.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #338,642 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #92 in Books > Arts & Photography > Painting > Landscape

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Perfect Place, August 19, 2005

By 

E. Bebo "Light in the Desert" (Southwestern US) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Georgia O'Keeffe and New Mexico: A Sense of Place (Hardcover)

I've toured her home in Abiquiu, visited the museum in Santa Fe, and now toured Ghost Ranch to view the locales of many of Georgia O'Keeffe's paintings. This book is a perfect reminder of these experiences and one I already treasure.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Living in New Mexico, July 28, 2007

By 

Debby Caviness ""enchanted by nature"" - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Georgia O'Keeffe and New Mexico: A Sense of Place (Hardcover)

I live 12 miles from Abiquiu, New Mexico where Georgia O'Keefe lived and painted the last 39 plus years of her life. One can only imagine the beauty from her paintings unless you've had the opportunity to see it in person. The book does have quite a few of the paintings she did while living in Abiquiu and at Ghost Ranch; however, if you are interested in reading about her life, the book to read is Portrait of An Artist; A Biography of Georgia O'Keefe by Laurie Lisle. I couldn't put the book down!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book for artists and those who appreciate fine art, October 9, 2009

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Gaye E. Duncan (Arkansas) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Georgia O'Keeffe and New Mexico: A Sense of Place (Hardcover)

Excellent book on this artist and her work. Would recommend to everyone with an eye on art and special ways to see artistic subjects.