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Lot Essay
The Red Maple at Lake George dates from the key early years of Georgia O’Keeffe’s career in the 1920s, when her debut onto the New York art scene caused an absolute sensation. Never before had an artist transformed still lifes from nature into such powerfully focused and magnified compositions. Beyond the flowers that established her fame, O’Keeffe continuously sought inspiration from elsewhere in the natural world, from the vibrant autumnal leaves of Upstate New York to the bleached bones and skulls that would fascinate her in the American Southwest. In each case, as Marjorie P. Balge-Crozier writes, “she radically altered the scale and presentation of her subjects in ways that make us equally aware of the art and the artist as well as the thing represented—a truly modern contribution to a venerable Western tradition” (Georgia O’Keeffe: The Poetry of Things, Washington, D.C., 1999, p. 42). An iconic example of these efforts, her striking The Red Maple at Lake George of 1926 uniquely transforms the leaf into a compelling subject to be closely studied and admired.
“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.” - Georgia O’Keeffe
In 1918, O’Keeffe began to regularly depart New York City to spend time at the family estate of her dealer and later husband Alfred Stieglitz in Lake George, New York. Creatively stimulated by the environment, she would spend most of every summer and early fall there over the next decade. The artist took long walks along paths throughout the property, seeking peace within the wooden landscape and gathering pieces of nature that captivated her. She particularly enjoyed witnessing the changing colors of the local foliage, writing, “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” (quoted in Modern Nature: Georgia O’Keeffe and Lake George, Glen Falls, New York, 2013, p. 43).
“Leaves by themselves do not turn up in the history of still-life painting until O’Keeffe elevates them to that privileged position.” - Marjorie Balge-Crozier
As epitomized by The Red Maple at Lake George, O’Keeffe’s focus on the autumn leaves themselves, rather than as part of a landscape or larger assemblage, resulted in a series of thoroughly modern and absolutely innovative paintings. Indeed, Marjorie Balge-Crozier asserts, “Leaves by themselves do not turn up in the history of still-life painting until O’Keeffe elevates them to that privileged position” (Modern Nature: Georgia O’Keeffe and Lake George, p. 63). O’Keeffe first experimented with compositions of layered leaves in 1922, beginning in small scale. She would return to and refine the subject, completing almost thirty leaf paintings by 1931 ranging in size and format. Several other examples are in institutional collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago; Brooklyn Museum of Art; Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio; Dayton Art Institute, Ohio; Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown; Frederic R. Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis; McNay Art Museum, San Antonio; Milwaukee Art Museum; New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe; and Rhode Island School of Design, Providence.
In The Red Maple at Lake George, the maple leaf is depicted in large scale and fully dominates the picture as the only focal point, extending across the entire height of the canvas. The close-up perspective, closely cropped to one central still-life object, parallels O’Keeffe’s arrangement in many of her most famed works, notably including Jimson Weed (1932, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art). Here, the vertical composition, with the stem of the leaf ascending up the center axis, particularly emphasizes its monumentality. Furthermore, as in such paintings as White Rose with Larkspur No. I (1928, formerly in the Paul G. Allen Collection), the natural form then reverberates to fill the picture plane to its edges and create an allover patterning effect, isolating the subject from any identifiable setting.
Beyond the compositional power of magnifying the leaf to magnificent scale and placing it at the center of the canvas, this arrangement also carries symbolism; O’Keeffe boldly forces the viewer to acknowledge her subject as well as herself as the creator of its message. Indeed, the vertical format of the painting, with the leaf standing tall and facing the viewer, combined with O’Keeffe’s intense focus on the details of its form almost approaches the realm of portraiture. Showing the warm reds and darker tones, the bold curvaceous lines and the small fissures, her leaf paintings, including The Red Maple at Lake George, have also been considered as symbolic self-portraits of the artist. As Erin B. Coe declares, “Of all her Lake George subjects, the leaf pictures are perhaps her most personal and autobiographical statement that O’Keeffe left of her years in northern New York” (op. cit., 2013, p. 64).
“One is tempted to call them leaf portraits…one might also be tempted to call them portraits of O’Keeffe…” - Marjorie P. Balge-Crozier
The isolation of the leaf subject from any identifiable background also illustrates the connection between O’Keeffe’s paintings and the art of her friends and contemporaries working in the medium of photography. In 1922 O’Keeffe acknowledged the influence of Stieglitz’s circle of photographers, sharing that photography had “been part of my searching” (quoted in Georgia O’Keeffe, London, 2016, p. 12). Employing the photographic techniques of the detailed close-up and magnified image, as well as of the cropped edges of the picture plane, O’Keeffe’s close study of objects paralleled photographers such as Paul Strand, Edward Steichen and Edward Weston’s use of the camera to turn natural still-life forms into abstract images. Seen as both sensual and spiritual, their photographs and her paintings, like The Red Maple at Lake George, manifest the same duality.
Rather than the monochromatic hues of photography of the period, O’Keeffe emboldens her design through the remarkable red color. Many scholars have remarked on O'Keeffe's creative, aesthetic and artistic affinity for the reds that she used throughout her career, from her cannas and poppies to the apples and Southwestern hills. Here, the flaming red of the maple leaf infuses the entire composition with warmth and vibrancy, bleeding from the central leaf itself into the angles and curves of the abstract background. Lines dissect the work as they emanate from the lower center to the edges of the canvas, twisting and curling like tongues of fire amidst grays and blacks reminiscent of charcoal and ash. In a statement that can describe much of her most famous work, O’Keeffe declared, “It is lines and colors put together so that they may say something. For me, that is the very basis of painting. The abstraction is often the most definite form for the intangible thing in myself that I can only clarify in paint” (as quoted in C. Eldredge, Georgia O'Keeffe, New York, 1991, p. 36).
“It is lines and colors put together so that they may say something. For me, that is the very basis of painting.”
Both immediately arresting and endlessly fascinating with these imbedded emotional associations, The Red Maple at Lake George testifies to the immense artistic skill with which O’Keeffe transformed her inspirations from nature into awe-inspiring meditations. By applying her Modernist aesthetics to natural forms, O'Keeffe drew the viewer's attention to their often unappreciated beauty. The Red Maple at Lake George exemplifies her most celebrated work with its simplified abstraction and vibrant color evoking the sensuous, autumnal landscape that enthralled her. “Though the work is explicitly feminine, it is convincingly and triumphantly powerful, a combination that had not before existed” (R. Robinson, Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life, New York, 1989, p. 278).
“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.” - Georgia O’Keeffe
In 1918, O’Keeffe began to regularly depart New York City to spend time at the family estate of her dealer and later husband Alfred Stieglitz in Lake George, New York. Creatively stimulated by the environment, she would spend most of every summer and early fall there over the next decade. The artist took long walks along paths throughout the property, seeking peace within the wooden landscape and gathering pieces of nature that captivated her. She particularly enjoyed witnessing the changing colors of the local foliage, writing, “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” (quoted in Modern Nature: Georgia O’Keeffe and Lake George, Glen Falls, New York, 2013, p. 43).
“Leaves by themselves do not turn up in the history of still-life painting until O’Keeffe elevates them to that privileged position.” - Marjorie Balge-Crozier
As epitomized by The Red Maple at Lake George, O’Keeffe’s focus on the autumn leaves themselves, rather than as part of a landscape or larger assemblage, resulted in a series of thoroughly modern and absolutely innovative paintings. Indeed, Marjorie Balge-Crozier asserts, “Leaves by themselves do not turn up in the history of still-life painting until O’Keeffe elevates them to that privileged position” (Modern Nature: Georgia O’Keeffe and Lake George, p. 63). O’Keeffe first experimented with compositions of layered leaves in 1922, beginning in small scale. She would return to and refine the subject, completing almost thirty leaf paintings by 1931 ranging in size and format. Several other examples are in institutional collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago; Brooklyn Museum of Art; Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio; Dayton Art Institute, Ohio; Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown; Frederic R. Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis; McNay Art Museum, San Antonio; Milwaukee Art Museum; New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe; and Rhode Island School of Design, Providence.
In The Red Maple at Lake George, the maple leaf is depicted in large scale and fully dominates the picture as the only focal point, extending across the entire height of the canvas. The close-up perspective, closely cropped to one central still-life object, parallels O’Keeffe’s arrangement in many of her most famed works, notably including Jimson Weed (1932, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art). Here, the vertical composition, with the stem of the leaf ascending up the center axis, particularly emphasizes its monumentality. Furthermore, as in such paintings as White Rose with Larkspur No. I (1928, formerly in the Paul G. Allen Collection), the natural form then reverberates to fill the picture plane to its edges and create an allover patterning effect, isolating the subject from any identifiable setting.
Beyond the compositional power of magnifying the leaf to magnificent scale and placing it at the center of the canvas, this arrangement also carries symbolism; O’Keeffe boldly forces the viewer to acknowledge her subject as well as herself as the creator of its message. Indeed, the vertical format of the painting, with the leaf standing tall and facing the viewer, combined with O’Keeffe’s intense focus on the details of its form almost approaches the realm of portraiture. Showing the warm reds and darker tones, the bold curvaceous lines and the small fissures, her leaf paintings, including The Red Maple at Lake George, have also been considered as symbolic self-portraits of the artist. As Erin B. Coe declares, “Of all her Lake George subjects, the leaf pictures are perhaps her most personal and autobiographical statement that O’Keeffe left of her years in northern New York” (op. cit., 2013, p. 64).
“One is tempted to call them leaf portraits…one might also be tempted to call them portraits of O’Keeffe…” - Marjorie P. Balge-Crozier
The isolation of the leaf subject from any identifiable background also illustrates the connection between O’Keeffe’s paintings and the art of her friends and contemporaries working in the medium of photography. In 1922 O’Keeffe acknowledged the influence of Stieglitz’s circle of photographers, sharing that photography had “been part of my searching” (quoted in Georgia O’Keeffe, London, 2016, p. 12). Employing the photographic techniques of the detailed close-up and magnified image, as well as of the cropped edges of the picture plane, O’Keeffe’s close study of objects paralleled photographers such as Paul Strand, Edward Steichen and Edward Weston’s use of the camera to turn natural still-life forms into abstract images. Seen as both sensual and spiritual, their photographs and her paintings, like The Red Maple at Lake George, manifest the same duality.
Rather than the monochromatic hues of photography of the period, O’Keeffe emboldens her design through the remarkable red color. Many scholars have remarked on O'Keeffe's creative, aesthetic and artistic affinity for the reds that she used throughout her career, from her cannas and poppies to the apples and Southwestern hills. Here, the flaming red of the maple leaf infuses the entire composition with warmth and vibrancy, bleeding from the central leaf itself into the angles and curves of the abstract background. Lines dissect the work as they emanate from the lower center to the edges of the canvas, twisting and curling like tongues of fire amidst grays and blacks reminiscent of charcoal and ash. In a statement that can describe much of her most famous work, O’Keeffe declared, “It is lines and colors put together so that they may say something. For me, that is the very basis of painting. The abstraction is often the most definite form for the intangible thing in myself that I can only clarify in paint” (as quoted in C. Eldredge, Georgia O'Keeffe, New York, 1991, p. 36).
“It is lines and colors put together so that they may say something. For me, that is the very basis of painting.”
Both immediately arresting and endlessly fascinating with these imbedded emotional associations, The Red Maple at Lake George testifies to the immense artistic skill with which O’Keeffe transformed her inspirations from nature into awe-inspiring meditations. By applying her Modernist aesthetics to natural forms, O'Keeffe drew the viewer's attention to their often unappreciated beauty. The Red Maple at Lake George exemplifies her most celebrated work with its simplified abstraction and vibrant color evoking the sensuous, autumnal landscape that enthralled her. “Though the work is explicitly feminine, it is convincingly and triumphantly powerful, a combination that had not before existed” (R. Robinson, Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life, New York, 1989, p. 278).