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Lot Essay
In 1916, Georgia O'Keeffe made her professional debut with a series of black and white charcoal drawings that are some of the most pioneering examples of American Modernism. That same year, O'Keeffe produced a group of watercolors composed of simple bold colors, such as Blue I, which represents a further investigation of pure abstraction. The small and seminal body of works on paper produced between 1915 and 1917 are some of the earliest and most original abstract images in the history of American art.
In 1915, while teaching in Canyon, Texas, the twenty-eight years old Georgia O'Keeffe "[purged] the mannerisms acquired over her long tutelage" and decided, as she states, to "think things out for myself...and draw the things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught--shapes and ideas so near to me--so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn't occurred to me to put them down." She sent to her friend, Anita Pollitzer, letters and examples of her new abstract drawings. O'Keeffe wrote to Pollitzer, "'I wonder if I am a raving lunatic for trying to make these things.' The works were freighted with significance of a highly personal yet inchoate nature; they conveyed a private meaning that O'Keeffe was unable to verbalize. 'Maybe the fault is with what I am trying to say,' she apologized; 'I don't seem to be able to find the words for it--.'" (as quoted in C.C. Eldridge, Georgia O'Keeffe, New York, 1991, pp. 20-21) Blue I was borne from this transformation in O'Keeffe's art.
Composed of brilliant and varying hues of blue, Blue I is an early affirmation of O'Keeffe's passion for color. "O'Keeffe's early attraction to color developed through her love of the outdoors, a Midwestern upbringing, and her early art education in girls' schools. Colors meant more to her than words. Critic Henry McBride would point out that O'Keeffe's color 'outblazed' that of the other painters in the Steiglitz circle." (J.G. Castro, The Art and Life of Georgia O'Keeffe, New York, 1985, p. 162) In a letter to Pollitzer, dated 11 September 1916, O'Keeffe proclaims with great exuberance her love of the color and visual energy that surrounded her in Texas, "Tonight I walked into the sunset--to mail some letters--the whole sky--and there is so much of it out here--was just blazing--and grey blue clouds were rioting all through the hotness of it--and the ugly little buildings and windmills looked great against it. But some way or other I didn't seem to like the redness much so after I mailed the letters home--and kept on walking--The Eastern sky was all grey blue--bunches of clouds--different kinds of clouds--sticking around everywhere and the whole thing--lit up--first in one place--then in another with flashes of lightning--sometimes just sheet lightning--and sometimes sheet lightning with a sharp bright zigzag flashing across it--." (as quoted in J. Cowart, J. Hamilton, Georgia O'Keeffe: Art and Letters, Washington, DC, 1987, pp. 156-57)
This focus on the qualities and intricacies of color study were nothing new to O'Keeffe. Throughout her career, color remained as important to her artistic spirit as form and content. In 1930, Georgia O'Keeffe wrote to William Milliken, the Director of the Cleveland Art Museum, "Color is one of the great things in the world that makes life worth living to me and as I have come to think of painting it is my effort to create an equivalent with paint color for the world--life as I see it." (Georgia O'Keeffe: Art and Letters, p. 202) Much of O'Keeffe's philosophy about the use of color was inspired by Wassily Kandinsky's color theories. The artist claimed that "color directly influences the soul." O'Keeffe believed blue to be "the typical heavenly color" and "a call to the infinite, a desire for purity and transcendence." Modernist artist Charles Demuth hailed the color in O'Keeffe's paintings: "each color almost regains the fun it must have felt within itself on forming the first rainbow." (as quoted in Georgia O'Keeffe, pp. 24, 32)
By 1915, according to Sarah Whitaker Peters, O'Keeffe "wanted her paintings to work like visual poems, to resist the intellect almost entirely. Hence her forms were simplified to their essence and her colors were orchestrated for physic resonance..." (Becoming O'Keeffe: The Early Years, New York, 1991, p. 13) Jack Cowart further comments: "O'Keeffe used color as emotion...In her abstractions, O'Keeffe wrapped color around the ethereal. Whether her images are abstract or figurative, O'Keeffe gives the viewer a profound lesson in emotional and intellectual coloring. No reproduction will ever do justice to the intensity, the solidity, or the high pitch of these colors, for the notion of local or topical color in her work is only relative, just the beginning point...(Georgia O'Keeffe: Art and Letters, p. 4) Composed of amorphous forms of varying hues, Blue No. I evokes the raw and personal emotion that found continuous expression in her works throughout her career.
In 1915, while teaching in Canyon, Texas, the twenty-eight years old Georgia O'Keeffe "[purged] the mannerisms acquired over her long tutelage" and decided, as she states, to "think things out for myself...and draw the things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught--shapes and ideas so near to me--so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn't occurred to me to put them down." She sent to her friend, Anita Pollitzer, letters and examples of her new abstract drawings. O'Keeffe wrote to Pollitzer, "'I wonder if I am a raving lunatic for trying to make these things.' The works were freighted with significance of a highly personal yet inchoate nature; they conveyed a private meaning that O'Keeffe was unable to verbalize. 'Maybe the fault is with what I am trying to say,' she apologized; 'I don't seem to be able to find the words for it--.'" (as quoted in C.C. Eldridge, Georgia O'Keeffe, New York, 1991, pp. 20-21) Blue I was borne from this transformation in O'Keeffe's art.
Composed of brilliant and varying hues of blue, Blue I is an early affirmation of O'Keeffe's passion for color. "O'Keeffe's early attraction to color developed through her love of the outdoors, a Midwestern upbringing, and her early art education in girls' schools. Colors meant more to her than words. Critic Henry McBride would point out that O'Keeffe's color 'outblazed' that of the other painters in the Steiglitz circle." (J.G. Castro, The Art and Life of Georgia O'Keeffe, New York, 1985, p. 162) In a letter to Pollitzer, dated 11 September 1916, O'Keeffe proclaims with great exuberance her love of the color and visual energy that surrounded her in Texas, "Tonight I walked into the sunset--to mail some letters--the whole sky--and there is so much of it out here--was just blazing--and grey blue clouds were rioting all through the hotness of it--and the ugly little buildings and windmills looked great against it. But some way or other I didn't seem to like the redness much so after I mailed the letters home--and kept on walking--The Eastern sky was all grey blue--bunches of clouds--different kinds of clouds--sticking around everywhere and the whole thing--lit up--first in one place--then in another with flashes of lightning--sometimes just sheet lightning--and sometimes sheet lightning with a sharp bright zigzag flashing across it--." (as quoted in J. Cowart, J. Hamilton, Georgia O'Keeffe: Art and Letters, Washington, DC, 1987, pp. 156-57)
This focus on the qualities and intricacies of color study were nothing new to O'Keeffe. Throughout her career, color remained as important to her artistic spirit as form and content. In 1930, Georgia O'Keeffe wrote to William Milliken, the Director of the Cleveland Art Museum, "Color is one of the great things in the world that makes life worth living to me and as I have come to think of painting it is my effort to create an equivalent with paint color for the world--life as I see it." (Georgia O'Keeffe: Art and Letters, p. 202) Much of O'Keeffe's philosophy about the use of color was inspired by Wassily Kandinsky's color theories. The artist claimed that "color directly influences the soul." O'Keeffe believed blue to be "the typical heavenly color" and "a call to the infinite, a desire for purity and transcendence." Modernist artist Charles Demuth hailed the color in O'Keeffe's paintings: "each color almost regains the fun it must have felt within itself on forming the first rainbow." (as quoted in Georgia O'Keeffe, pp. 24, 32)
By 1915, according to Sarah Whitaker Peters, O'Keeffe "wanted her paintings to work like visual poems, to resist the intellect almost entirely. Hence her forms were simplified to their essence and her colors were orchestrated for physic resonance..." (Becoming O'Keeffe: The Early Years, New York, 1991, p. 13) Jack Cowart further comments: "O'Keeffe used color as emotion...In her abstractions, O'Keeffe wrapped color around the ethereal. Whether her images are abstract or figurative, O'Keeffe gives the viewer a profound lesson in emotional and intellectual coloring. No reproduction will ever do justice to the intensity, the solidity, or the high pitch of these colors, for the notion of local or topical color in her work is only relative, just the beginning point...(Georgia O'Keeffe: Art and Letters, p. 4) Composed of amorphous forms of varying hues, Blue No. I evokes the raw and personal emotion that found continuous expression in her works throughout her career.