Lot Essay
During the 1920s Georgia O'Keeffe began painting magnified images of flowers and leaves. These subjects enabled O'Keeffe to concentrate on color and form, and large canvases such as My Autumn, executed in 1929, characterize her work of this period.
Much of O'Keeffe's inspiration came from Lake George, where the artist spent time with her husband Alfred Stieglitz during the summer and autumn months. While O'Keeffe painted year-round, "she came to feel that autumn was her time for painting. She was rested, often alone with Stieglitz, and with many feelings and images stored from her summer out-of-doors....Many of her finest Lake George paintings were done at this time of year in October colors..." (L. Lisle, Portrait of an Artist, New York, 1986, p. 197) Indeed, in a letter to Mitchell Kennerley dated January 1929 O'Keeffe herself wrote: "I want to tell you about the paintings too--. First the yellow one--I always look forward to the Autumn--to working at that time...and continue what I had been trying to put down of the Autumn for years--But as I walked far up into the hills--through the woods--one morning--it ocurred to me that the thing I enjoy of the autumn is there no matter what is happening to me--no matter how gloomy I may be feeling--so I came back with my hickory leaf and daisy--" (Georgia O'Keeffe Art and Letters, New York, 1987, p. 187). Titled by the artist, My Autumn, with its vast range of reds and yellows, clearly exemplifies O'Keeffe's passion for this time of year.
In addition to Lake George, it is also possible that Henry David Thoreau's Walden inspired O'Keeffe's choice of leaves as subject. In 1854 Thoreau wrote: "No wonder that the earth expresses itself outwardly in leaves, it so labors with the idea inwardly...The overhanging leaf sees here its prototype...The feathers and wings of birds are still drier and thinner leaves...The whole tree itself is but one leaf, and rivers are still vaster leaves whose pulp is intervening earth...Is not the hand a spreading palm leaf with its lobes and veins?...The earth is...but living poetry like the leaves of a tree, which precede flowers and fruit,--not a fossil earth but a living earth" (quoted in S.W. Peters, New York, 1991, p. 264). It seems likely that O'Keeffe was familar with this passage, as "the leaf" in My Autumn appears to take on a conceptual life similar to that which Thoreau describes.
Much has been written about O'Keeffe's relationship with Stieglitz and the influence each had on the other's work. It is likely that photography--both Stieglitz's and others--had some impact on O'Keeffe's paintings. The leaf was a subject for photographers during the 1920s, and O'Keeffe employed the photographic techniques of the detailed close-up and magnified image, as well as of the cropped edges of the picture plane. The year 1929 was one of transition for O'Keeffe, marking her departure from New York to New Mexico. My Autumn reflects this transition as it contains elements reminiscent of her earliest abstractions, the undulating flower forms of the twenties, and a hint of the Southwestern imagery to come.
This painting will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist's work, a joint project of the National Gallery, Washington, D.C., and the Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation.
Much of O'Keeffe's inspiration came from Lake George, where the artist spent time with her husband Alfred Stieglitz during the summer and autumn months. While O'Keeffe painted year-round, "she came to feel that autumn was her time for painting. She was rested, often alone with Stieglitz, and with many feelings and images stored from her summer out-of-doors....Many of her finest Lake George paintings were done at this time of year in October colors..." (L. Lisle, Portrait of an Artist, New York, 1986, p. 197) Indeed, in a letter to Mitchell Kennerley dated January 1929 O'Keeffe herself wrote: "I want to tell you about the paintings too--. First the yellow one--I always look forward to the Autumn--to working at that time...and continue what I had been trying to put down of the Autumn for years--But as I walked far up into the hills--through the woods--one morning--it ocurred to me that the thing I enjoy of the autumn is there no matter what is happening to me--no matter how gloomy I may be feeling--so I came back with my hickory leaf and daisy--" (Georgia O'Keeffe Art and Letters, New York, 1987, p. 187). Titled by the artist, My Autumn, with its vast range of reds and yellows, clearly exemplifies O'Keeffe's passion for this time of year.
In addition to Lake George, it is also possible that Henry David Thoreau's Walden inspired O'Keeffe's choice of leaves as subject. In 1854 Thoreau wrote: "No wonder that the earth expresses itself outwardly in leaves, it so labors with the idea inwardly...The overhanging leaf sees here its prototype...The feathers and wings of birds are still drier and thinner leaves...The whole tree itself is but one leaf, and rivers are still vaster leaves whose pulp is intervening earth...Is not the hand a spreading palm leaf with its lobes and veins?...The earth is...but living poetry like the leaves of a tree, which precede flowers and fruit,--not a fossil earth but a living earth" (quoted in S.W. Peters, New York, 1991, p. 264). It seems likely that O'Keeffe was familar with this passage, as "the leaf" in My Autumn appears to take on a conceptual life similar to that which Thoreau describes.
Much has been written about O'Keeffe's relationship with Stieglitz and the influence each had on the other's work. It is likely that photography--both Stieglitz's and others--had some impact on O'Keeffe's paintings. The leaf was a subject for photographers during the 1920s, and O'Keeffe employed the photographic techniques of the detailed close-up and magnified image, as well as of the cropped edges of the picture plane. The year 1929 was one of transition for O'Keeffe, marking her departure from New York to New Mexico. My Autumn reflects this transition as it contains elements reminiscent of her earliest abstractions, the undulating flower forms of the twenties, and a hint of the Southwestern imagery to come.
This painting will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist's work, a joint project of the National Gallery, Washington, D.C., and the Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation.