O'Keefe: The Life of an American Legend [Mass Market Paperback]

Jeffrey Hogrefe (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1994

An exploration of the relationship between O'Keeffe's life and art discusses the impetus behind her sexually charged flower paintings, her relationship with the much older Stieglitz, why she lied about her past, and other issues. Reprint. PW. AB.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

How did a gaunt, fearful schoolteacher from the Texas Panhandle become the best-known American woman artist of the century? This engrossing biography of Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) sweeps away myths and legends. An icon of self-reliance whose life in the New Mexico desert has inspired feminists, the acerbic and imperious O'Keeffe, in Hogrefe's candid portrait, tended to dominate other women and looked up to certain men as superior beings. Her husband, New York photographer and art impresario Alfred Stieglitz, 23 years her senior, was a parental figure, "the foundation against which she would rebel." Hogrefe, a former Washington Post arts columnist, attributes O'Keeffe's frequent rages to suppressed memories of childhood incest. Following a series of nervous breakdowns, O'Keeffe came to accept her bisexuality. "The victim became the victimizer," subjugating a series of women who worshiped her like a goddess, in Hogrefe's account. Drawing on interviews, he sympathetically limns Juan Hamilton, the volatile young artist who cared for the elderly O'Keeffe, and whom many critics portray as a villain preying on an old lady. O'Keeffe's artistic achievements seem all the more remarkable in light of this searchingly critical yet affectionate biography, a remarkable piece of detective work. Photos.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Hogrefe has pared down Georgia O'Keeffe's 98 years to a series of sexual liaisons with members of both genders, culminating with her controversial relationship with the young sculptor Juan Hamilton, decades her junior. Interspersed among the descriptions of O'Keeffe's affairs or attempted seductions are the increasingly famous artist's dealings with Jackie Kennedy, Joni Mitchell, Calvin Klein, and Elizabeth Arden. Hogrefe has minimized the art historical critiques or interpretations of O'Keeffe's work, giving us not O'Keeffe the artist but a voyeuristic--though not unsympathetic--peep into the daily life of one of America's most famous painters. This latest biography falls short of the two others published since O'Keeffe's death in 1986, Roxana Robinson's Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life ( LJ 9/15/89) and Laurie Lisle's Portrait of an Artist: A Biography of Georgia O'Keeffe , which was revised and enlarged following the artist's death in 1986 (Univ. of New Mexico Pr., 1986). Recommended only for O'Keeffe completists.-- Martin R. Kalfatovic, Natl. Museum of American Art/Natl. Portrait Gallery Lib., Smithsonian Inst., Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Bantam (January 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553565451
• ISBN-13: 978-0553565454
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,814,430 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars digs for dirt at the expense of art, but is a fun read, June 29, 2002

By 

Robert J. Crawford (Balmette Talloires, France) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: O'Keeffe: The Life of an American Legend (Hardcover)

This is a good book, but the author does not seem to like either O-Keeffe or her husband Stieglitz. He covers their art a bit but without enthusiasm and instead seems to target their personal foibles and sexual peccadillos, which were many and indeed strange. This is valid reporting and ceratinly covers a necessary part of the story, but after a while it gets boring. However, in many sections the author speculates in strange ways on details of their intimate life that cannot be known, such as positiing that the origin of O'Keeffe's "discreet lesbianism" came from cryptically documented (hence essentially unprovable) sexual molestation as a child. If you want to look at the art, you have to go elsewhere. I enjoyed this as a vacation book but did not learn much from it beyond gossip.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Was Georgia really so bad?, September 5, 2004

By 

Blakey R. Oss (miami beach, FL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: O'Keeffe: The Life of an American Legend (Hardcover)

It's incredible how much less fun a biography is to read when the author seems to hate his or her subject. Why would they choose to spend hours and hours of research on somebody if they don't think that the person is worth it? It must be some sort of competition.
I found myself frequently thinking back to the Frida Kahlo bio written by Hayden Herrera. In that, the biographer's admiration for the artist was infectious, and was based on her body of work, which was illustrated throughout the book. But in this case, there are hardly any reproductions, because the writer concentrates on gossip and O'keeffe's shortcomings.
However, the biography is very thorough and addictive in a guilty pleasure sort of way.

2.0 out of 5 stars Wrong Focus, January 11, 2012

By 

Douglas Groothuis "Douglas Groothuis" - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: O'Keefe: The Life of an American Legend (Mass Market Paperback)

I agree with several of the reviewers that this work focuses too much on voyeuristic sexual revelations (and speculations) rather than on the artistic dimensions of O'Keeffe's work and life. I have only read half the book, but will unlikely go on, opting, rather, for a more profound and aesthetically engaged treatment of her life. One wonders when biography becomes gossip.