Lot Essay
Georgia O'Keeffe painted Blue Sand circa 1959 while she was living in New Mexico. "In the 1950s and 1960s O'Keeffe's sources would become her immediate world of the Abiquiu, New Mexico patio door, the Ghost Ranch post ends, the courtyard flagstones, and her airplane flight above the clouds. The artist was responding to the generation of post-World War II artists as they, too, expanded their works to an environmental proportion" ( Jack Cowart and Juan Hamilton, Georgia O'Keeffe Art and Letters, 1987, pg. 5).
Blue Sand is the result of O'Keeffe's own vision of the landscape she encountered while walking throughout her surroundings in New Mexico. Her favorite themes were often simple forms that were elementary and timeless. These forms connote a mystical and spiritual meaning that is the essence of her works. The shades of blue and white sweep across the canvas like a sand storm in the desert. These colors actually form meaning. O'Keeffe states: "The meaning of a word--to me--is not as exact as the meaning of a color. Color and shapes make a more definite statement than words. I write this because such odd things have been done about me with words. I have often been told what to paint. I am often amazed at the spoken and written word telling me what I have painted. I make this effort because no one else can know how my paintings happen" (A Studio Book, The Viking Press Georgia O'Keeffe, 1974, pg.1). The splendor of Blue Sand is its abstract quality that reveals O'Keeffe's freedom to explore the beauty of color, shape and form found in the desert landscape.
This painting will be considered for inclusion in the forthcoming catalogue raisonn of the artist's work, a joint project of the National Gallery of Art and Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation, with the assistance of the Burnett Foundation and the Henry Luce Foundation. Author: Barbara Buhler Lynes.
Blue Sand is the result of O'Keeffe's own vision of the landscape she encountered while walking throughout her surroundings in New Mexico. Her favorite themes were often simple forms that were elementary and timeless. These forms connote a mystical and spiritual meaning that is the essence of her works. The shades of blue and white sweep across the canvas like a sand storm in the desert. These colors actually form meaning. O'Keeffe states: "The meaning of a word--to me--is not as exact as the meaning of a color. Color and shapes make a more definite statement than words. I write this because such odd things have been done about me with words. I have often been told what to paint. I am often amazed at the spoken and written word telling me what I have painted. I make this effort because no one else can know how my paintings happen" (A Studio Book, The Viking Press Georgia O'Keeffe, 1974, pg.1). The splendor of Blue Sand is its abstract quality that reveals O'Keeffe's freedom to explore the beauty of color, shape and form found in the desert landscape.
This painting will be considered for inclusion in the forthcoming catalogue raisonn of the artist's work, a joint project of the National Gallery of Art and Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation, with the assistance of the Burnett Foundation and the Henry Luce Foundation. Author: Barbara Buhler Lynes.