GEORGIA O'KEEFFE | AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT, TITLED IN ANOTHER HAND "ABSTRACT PAINTINGS"

GEORGIA O'KEEFFE

AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT, TITLED IN ANOTHER HAND "ABSTRACT PAINTINGS"

12 pages on ruled white or yellow foolscap (13 1/8 x 8 5/8 in.). [Abiquiu, New Mexico (?), mid-1970s], titled in another hand on accompanying manila file folder; horizontal folds usually 2 in. from lower edge, a few pages made from portions of two sheets taped together. Typed and manuscript transcriptions included.

O'Keeffe on abstraction in her art: "In looking through my work there are many abstractions, but in thinking about it and worrying about it, I cannot find a satisfactory definition for the word. (I think the dictionary is hopeless.)"

In these notes, O'Keeffe also relates an early experience at Teacher's College, Columbia University. She heard music coming from a studio classroom and discovered that the teacher was having the students paint while listening to "The Song of the Volga Boatmen". "I saw that the teachers had the class drawing and painting lessons from the sound of the music. I was much interested in the idea of making a drawing or painting from the meaning of music.…It was all a new idea to me."

Presumably unpublished.  

PROVENANCE:

The artist

By descent to the present owner