NEW YORK, NY.- The Museum of Modern Art presents Georgia OKeeffe: To See Takes Time, the first exhibition to investigate the artists works on paper made in series. Using charcoal, watercolor, pastel, and graphite, she explored forms and phenomenafrom abstract rhythms to natures cyclesacross multiple examples. Some of these sequences also gave rise to related paintings, which have been installed alongside these works on paper.
On view in MoMAs third-floor south galleries from April 9 through August 12, 2023, the exhibition reveals a lesser-known side of this artist, foregrounding OKeeffes persistently modern process on paper. Over 120 works created over more than four decadesincluding key examples from MoMAs collectiondemonstrate the ways in which OKeeffe developed, repeated, and changed motifs that blur the boundary between observation and abstraction. Seen together, these works demonstrate how drawing in series allowed OKeeffe to revisit and rework subjects throughout her career, and reveal the thoughtful material choices behind her resplendent compositions.
Though MoMAs 1946 Georgia OKeeffe exhibition was its first retrospective of a woman artist, the Museum has not had an exhibition devoted to the artist since. This exhibition is the first to reunite drawings that are most often seen individually, in order to illuminate O'Keeffe's innovative serial practice. In the formative years of 1915 to 1918, OKeeffe made more works on paper than she would at any other time, producing her breakthrough series of charcoals and sequences in watercolor of abstract lines, organic landscapes, and nudes. While her practice turned increasingly toward canvas after this period, important series on paper reappearedincluding flowers of the 1930s, portraits of the 1940s, and aerial views of the 1950sall of which are included in this exhibition.
OKeeffes works on paper are the perfect expression of her belief that to see takes time, says associate curator Samantha Friedman. She recognized the necessity of slowing down for her own vision, and, in turn, her sequences of drawings invite us to take time in looking.
Among the key works in the exhibition is the early charcoal No. 8 Special (Drawing No. 8) (1916). OKeeffe called some of her works specials, indicating her belief in their success; this drawing features a spiraling composition that would recur throughout the artists decades-long career. She once noted of this work, I have made this drawing several times never remembering that I had made it beforeand not knowing where the idea came from, emphasizing the seriality of her practice.
Another highlight of the exhibition is the first reunion of all eight watercolors in the Evening Star series (1917), whose luminous palette reflects OKeeffes response to a Texas sky. Together, these works express how the artists development of an idea across multiple sheets mirrors the shifting forms and movement of nature itself. Tracing the course of a dramatic sunset, OKeeffe transitions from discrete bands of color separated by areas of blank paper to fully bled areas of liquid pigment.
Drawing X (1959), made the year OKeeffe took a three-month trip around the world, was inspired by the views of the landscape she witnessed from a plane. One in a series of such charcoals that also led to subjectively colored paintings, this work offers a key example of the complex and subtle relationship between representation and abstraction within the artists project.