Monday 18 July 2016

Georgia O'Keeffe at Tate Modern


Yep, it's the summer block buster and yes, it's well worth your attention, although the ticket prices are astronomical. Nineteen pounds for an adult, really? I heard it was packed on the weekends, so we went on a Thursday morning. It was busy, but not unpleasantly so.

A great survey of her work over seven decades from early charcoal abstractions, to New York views I had never seen before and was not exactly thrilled by, to the well known flowers, arroyos, mesas and bones.

If you are expecting enormous blooms all the way, you will be disappointed as there is just one room representing these But if you want to engage with O'Keeffe's vision of landscape, especially New England and, of course, the South West, then you will be thrilled. Carefully interspersed with Stieglistz' and Adams' photographs that add context.

Well curated, well explained and the catalogue is a must. It is surprising how small some of the canvases actually are. In my mind's eye they are vast like their subject matter. I guess that's her trick. and a clever one it is too. Masterful American modernism at its finest.


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