Sometimes you don’t know what you’re looking for–until you see it.
I was scanning art books the other day, the large format kinds that don’t sit with spines facing out like paperbacks and texts. No. These are the big, square books with intentional type, meant to be enjoyed sweet and slow.
Among them was a collection of Alfred Stieglitz’s photographs of Georgia O’Keeffe. I never knew how one might perceive her as a subject. Lovely.
I am currently researching Alfred Stieglitz and find his photographs of Georgina O’Keeffe quite wonderful. Georgina was a very attractive woman and Alfred’s photographs of her show his love and respect for her.
The more variety and frequency with which I look at art, the more instantly I can tell if I adore it. It’s personal connection–evoking feeling that’s real and vivid–that gives a piece its prize of worthiness, that makes it a gift of art.
Of course this lift of the spirit happened immediately when I knelt over the book I found this and other large photos Stieglitz took of O’Keeffe. And it also stunned me when I stood a yard from Dali’s Dream.
What else did she paint, apart from flowers???
A yellow house: the subject of the first Georgia O’Keeffe painting I saw. This was more than a decade ago, at the North Carolina Museum of Art.
The image was so intimate, it, too, was a kind of portrait. So compelling. I went back a couple of times during my years in Raleigh-Durham to visit this piece.
I wonder if it’s still there?