Georgia O'Keeffe 1887-1986

The Downtown Gallery, New York
Edith G. Halpert, New York, 1961
Andrew Crispo Gallery, New York, 1969
ACA Galleries, New York, 1969
Harry Spiro, New York, 1969
Kennedy Galleries, New York, 1969
Private Collection, New York, 1970
ACA Galleries, New York
Private Collection, Los Angeles, California, 1971
M. Knoedler & Co., New York
Acquired by the present owner, 1978

New York, Anderson Galleries, Alfred Stieglitz Presents One Hundred Pictures: Oils, Water-colors, Pastels, Drawings, by Georgia O'Keeffe, American, January-February 1923
New York, The Downtown Gallery, O'Keeffe Paintings in Pastel: 1914-1952, February-March 1952, no. 5
New York, The Downtown Gallery, Abstract Painting in America: 1903-1923, March-April, 1962, no. 41
Iowa City, Iowa, State University of Iowa, Vintage American Moderns, May-August 1962, no. 33
Washington, D.C., Corcoran Gallery of Art; Utica, New York, Munson-Williams-Proctor-Institute, The Edith Gregor Halpert Collection, September-November 1962
New York, Andrew Crispo Gallery, Pioneers of American Abstraction: Oscar Bluemner, Stuart Davis, Charles Demuth, Arthur Dove, John Marin, Georgia O'Keeffe, Charles Sheeler, Joseph Stella, Max Weber, October-November 1973, no. 94
Zürich, Switzerland, Kunsthaus Zürich, Georgia O'Keeffe, October 2003-January 2004, no. 11

Barbara Buhler Lynes, Georgia O'Keeffe: Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven, Connecticut, 1999, vol. I, no. 382, p. 206, illustrated in color; vol. II, appendix III, p. 1108, fig. 13

This work is in very good condition. The paper is laid down on board. There is mat burn visible at the extreme edges. There are two small surface smudges at the center right edge.
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Georgia O’Keeffe executed Waves in 1922, the year prior to the landmark exhibition of 100 of her works at the Anderson Gallery in New York, in which it was included. Although created early in her career, the work demonstrates the distinctively organic synthesis of realism and abstraction that lies at the core of her aesthetic. O’Keeffe was always drawn to natural motifs and subject matter, and water held a deep fascination for her. She loved the ocean in particular, feeling a connection between the sea and the seemingly endless horizon found on the Midwestern plains where she grew up. Barbara Buhler Lynes writes that O'Keeffe “celebrated [water for] both its abundant presence in some parts of the world and its relative absence in others” (Georgia O’Keeffe: Museum Collections, New York, 2007, p. 34). While living primarily in New York between 1918 and 1928, O’Keeffe regularly vacationed at the Stieglitz home in Lake George, New York and made several trips to York Beach, Maine where she produced a number of works that explored the fluid, inherently dynamic qualities of water. 

Rendered in pastel, the present work depicts a series of waves in varying states of size and intensity. O’Keeffe began to utilize pastel with regularity when she returned to New York after living in rural Texas from 1916-17, and she maintained her preference for the medium throughout the 1950s. When using pastel, O’Keeffe sacrificed the mutability and transparency of watercolor in favor of a velvety surface and more controlled execution. In imagery, she replaced the freer forms of her watercolors with tighter compositions that exhibit the same daring juxtaposition of color and precise delineation of shapes and contours as her concurrent oils.

O’Keeffe’s skill with pastel is exhibited in Waves, as she exploits the physical properties of the medium to capture the natural cycle of waves building, crashing and reforming once again. She effectively renders the glass-like surface of softly lapping water, while also portraying the exuberant spray that a breaking wave creates. Despite the remarkable accuracy with which she depicts her subject, O’Keeffe’s ultimate aim is to capture her perception of the spirit of water. By isolating her subject from its larger environmental context, O’Keeffe leaves the realm of pure objectivity to focus on the abstract forms found within the natural world—the elegant arabesque created by a growing wave, for example. “It is surprising to me to see how many people separate the objective from the abstract,” O’Keeffe once explained of her creative intent. “Objective painting is not good painting unless it is good in the abstract sense. A hill or a tree cannot make a good painting just because it is a hill or a tree. It is lines and colors put together so that they say something. For me that is the very basis of painting” (Barbara Haskell, Georgia O’Keeffe: Abstraction, New York, 2009, p. 166).