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Georgia O’Keeffe and New Mexico: A Sense of Place

$34.99

Hardcover
by Barbara Buhler Lynes (Author), Lesley Poling-Kempes (Author), Leslie Poling Kempes (Author)

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Georgia O’Keeffe and New Mexico: A Sense of Place is a book about the artists’ inaugural visit to New Mexico in 1917.  Georgia O’Keeffe was immediately captivated by the austere allure of its unique architectural and natural forms. Beginning in 1929, she dedicated a portion of nearly every year to painting in the region, starting in Taos and later extending her artistic endeavors to Alcalde, Abiquiu, and Ghost Ranch. Her occasional ventures took her to remote locations that held a particular allure. “Georgia O’Keeffe and New Mexico” stands as the inaugural exploration into the renowned artist’s portrayal of these Southwestern landscapes.

This exquisitely crafted book, complementing an eponymous exhibition at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico, not only showcases 50 of O’Keeffe’s paintings from the exhibition but also incorporates captivating photographs of the locales that ignited her creativity. Accompanied by diagrams illustrating the distinctive geology of the region, the book provides a comprehensive analysis of the magnificence within O’Keeffe’s work. A trio of distinguished authors contribute insightful essays to deepen our understanding.

Barbara Buhler Lynes, the Curator of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum and the orchestrator of the exhibition, delves into the profound connection between the artist’s paintings and the landscapes that served as her muse. Frederick Turner contributes an enlightening essay that contrasts O’Keeffe’s perceived aloofness from Santa Fe’s established art colony with her profound intimacy with the local landscape she ardently cherished. Lesley Poling-Kempes provides a fascinating narrative chronicling O’Keeffe’s years in the region, coupled with a valuable explanation of the geological forces shaping the vivid colors and dramatic forms in O’Keeffe’s iconic landscapes.

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.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review

“Winner of the 2005 Book Award in Fine Art, Independent Publisher Book Awards”

“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

Review
“This book will significantly contribute to our understanding of this phase of O’Keeffe’s life and accomplishments. Lynes’ essay, in particular, opens up a new aspect of the artist’s work. She revisits the landscapes that inspired much of O’Keeffe’s artistry, comparing each carefully with its corresponding painted rendition. She discovers how the artist walks the fine line between specific observation and playful abstraction. Her careful consideration of each pictorial structure makes us see the lengths to which O’Keeffe went in order to make these landscape forms speak to her.”―Kathleen Pyne, University of Notre Dame
From the Inside Flap
“This book will significantly contribute to our understanding of this phase of O’Keeffe’s life and accomplishments. Lynes’ essay, in particular, opens up a new aspect of the artist’s work. She revisits the landscapes that inspired much of O’Keeffe’s artistry, comparing each carefully with its corresponding painted rendition. She discovers how the artist walks the fine line between specific observation and playful abstraction. Her careful consideration of each pictorial structure makes us see the lengths to which O’Keeffe went in order to make these landscape forms speak to her.”–Kathleen Pyne, University of Notre Dame
From the Back Cover

“This book will significantly contribute to our understanding of this phase of O’Keeffe’s life and accomplishments. Lynes’ essay, in particular, opens up a new aspect of the artist’s work. She revisits the landscapes that inspired much of O’Keeffe’s artistry, comparing each carefully with its corresponding painted rendition. She discovers how the artist walks the fine line between specific observation and playful abstraction. Her careful consideration of each pictorial structure makes us see the lengths to which O’Keeffe went in order to make these landscape forms speak to her.”–Kathleen Pyne, University of Notre Dame

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