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Lot Essay
Lake George in Woods is an important early abstraction by Georgia O'Keeffe and a superb example of her mastery of the pastel medium. The present work is the last and most abstract in a series of three pastels of Lake George produced by the artist in 1922, the other two of which are in museum collections: Pool in the Woods, Lake George (Reynolda House, Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, North Carolina) and Pond in the Woods (Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe, New Mexico. Promised gift, The Burnett Foundation).
O'Keeffe drew much inspiration from the forms and colors of Lake George, where she spent time with her husband, Alfred Stieglitz, during the summer and autumn months beginning in 1918. She produced a series of paintings and works on paper related to the lake and her impressions of the surrounding natural landscape. In Lake George in Woods the pastel medium allows O'Keeffe to capture the vivid colors of the lake and its reflections and to imbue the work with a rich, velvety surface. "Pastel afforded O'Keeffe a medium for her most unabashedly beautiful works of art. Exploiting pastel's broad range in hue and value, she was able to combine the graceful tonal imagery she had developed in charcoal with the intense abstract color she had explored in watercolor. Unexpectedly, she also found that pastel could project a captivating surface and texture. In contrast to her brief campaigns of focused work in charcoal and watercolor, O'Keeffe, beginning in 1915, used pastel steadily throughout her career." (J.C. Walsh, "The Language of O'Keeffe's Materials: Charcoal, Watercolor, Pastel" in R.E. Fine, B.B. Lynes, et al., O'Keeffe on Paper, Washington, D.C., 2000, p. 68) In the present work, O'Keeffe adeptly manipulates the medium, varying the application and saturation of the pigments and modulating tones so as to convey the depth of the lake and the play of the reflections on its surface.
The central form of Lake George in Woods had significance for the artist and recurs throughout her career--from early works such as No. 8-Special (Drawing No. 8) (1916, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York), Blue I (1916, Private collection), Blue II (1916, Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe, New Mexico) and the Evening Star series of 1917 to later works such as A Piece of Wood I (1942, Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe), A Piece of Wood II (1942, Private collection) and her Pelvis series.
During the 1920s, while many Modernists such as Charles Sheeler, John Marin and Arthur Dove turned to the industrial sector for guidance and inspiration in subject matter, in works such as Lake George in Woods, O'Keeffe embraced the natural world. "O'Keeffe's work, a counter-response to technology, was soft, voluptuous and intimate. Full of rapturous colors and yielding surfaces, it furnishes a sense of astonishing discovery. . . 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)
CAPTION:
Installation photograph of the works of Georgia O'Keeffe at Anderson Galleries, 1923. Artwork: 2012 Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
O'Keeffe drew much inspiration from the forms and colors of Lake George, where she spent time with her husband, Alfred Stieglitz, during the summer and autumn months beginning in 1918. She produced a series of paintings and works on paper related to the lake and her impressions of the surrounding natural landscape. In Lake George in Woods the pastel medium allows O'Keeffe to capture the vivid colors of the lake and its reflections and to imbue the work with a rich, velvety surface. "Pastel afforded O'Keeffe a medium for her most unabashedly beautiful works of art. Exploiting pastel's broad range in hue and value, she was able to combine the graceful tonal imagery she had developed in charcoal with the intense abstract color she had explored in watercolor. Unexpectedly, she also found that pastel could project a captivating surface and texture. In contrast to her brief campaigns of focused work in charcoal and watercolor, O'Keeffe, beginning in 1915, used pastel steadily throughout her career." (J.C. Walsh, "The Language of O'Keeffe's Materials: Charcoal, Watercolor, Pastel" in R.E. Fine, B.B. Lynes, et al., O'Keeffe on Paper, Washington, D.C., 2000, p. 68) In the present work, O'Keeffe adeptly manipulates the medium, varying the application and saturation of the pigments and modulating tones so as to convey the depth of the lake and the play of the reflections on its surface.
The central form of Lake George in Woods had significance for the artist and recurs throughout her career--from early works such as No. 8-Special (Drawing No. 8) (1916, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York), Blue I (1916, Private collection), Blue II (1916, Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe, New Mexico) and the Evening Star series of 1917 to later works such as A Piece of Wood I (1942, Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe), A Piece of Wood II (1942, Private collection) and her Pelvis series.
During the 1920s, while many Modernists such as Charles Sheeler, John Marin and Arthur Dove turned to the industrial sector for guidance and inspiration in subject matter, in works such as Lake George in Woods, O'Keeffe embraced the natural world. "O'Keeffe's work, a counter-response to technology, was soft, voluptuous and intimate. Full of rapturous colors and yielding surfaces, it furnishes a sense of astonishing discovery. . . 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)
CAPTION:
Installation photograph of the works of Georgia O'Keeffe at Anderson Galleries, 1923. Artwork: 2012 Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.