Modernist Circle: Home

O’Keeffe became acquainted with a world of avant-garde artists, authors, and critics mainly through the galleries and publications of Alfred Stieglitz, noted photographer and gallerist to whom she was married. A select group of American artists including Charles Demuth, Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, John Marin, and Georgia O’Keeffe, known as the Stieglitz circle, were committed to capturing, expressing, and promoting a unique American identity. Motivated by the industrialization of American cities and responding to European avant-garde art, this group of artists produced exciting and powerful works illustrating an advancing modern world and a new American vision. They were further influenced by the bold ideas of a group of writers and critics such as Waldo Frank and Paul Rosenfeld, and often focused on one another as subjects of their writings and portraits.

Stieglitz and his creative circle not only promoted each other but also set the rules for interpreting each other’s work. Both troubling and beneficial, was the promotion of O’Keeffe as the authentic female American artist. They argued that O’Keeffe’s work broke from the artistic traditions of her male counterparts and that she produced work that was unique to her experience as a woman, which men could not convey. This aligned with foundational group thought that American artists must express an authentic voice and would never excel without striking out on a path different from European artists.

O’Keeffe was repeatedly stereotyped in a gendered role as the definitive modern woman artist by critics, colleagues, and friends. Photographer and friend, Paul Strand, exclaimed that “the work of Georgia O'Keefe [sic] proclaims itself with all the power and precision of genius…It is not a delusion or imitation of the work of men, nor does it derive from European influences. Here in America this amazing thing has happened. Here it is that the finest and most subtle perceptions of woman have crystallized for the first time in plastic terms, not only through line and form, but through color used with an expressiveness which it has never had before, which opens up vast new horizons in the evolution of painting as incarnation of the human spirit.”[i]

For a period, O’Keeffe worked well enough within the constructs of the Stieglitz circle of men but eventually grew tired of their talk, saying that they “didn’t think much of what I was doing” and that she felt like an “outsider.”[ii] She remained receptive to the underlying American modernist message and engaged with the group through Stieglitz by hanging their gallery exhibitions, socializing, corresponding, and listening in; however, she realized that she needed friendships with artists outside this exclusive group and began to object to being labeled as a woman artist.

Complex and collaborative, the expanded Stieglitz circle members that are represented in the exhibition help place O’Keeffe in context with her contemporaries and provides a glimpse into the connections between the larger creative group and their collective effort to shape the American modern art movement of the early 20th century.

The library offers an intimate viewing of rarely seen artworks from the collection including: watercolors by John Marin and Arthur Dove; newly acquired oil paintings by Florine Stettheimer and Marsden Hartley; and one of the few portraits created by O’Keeffe, a striking charcoal drawing of fellow artist Beauford  Delaney. Casework features books and exhibition catalogs of and by the circle, primarily from O’Keeffe’s personal library and many with significant inscriptions written by artists and authors. Archival material provides further insight into the close friendships shared such as a group photograph by Alfred Stieglitz, a postcard from Ettie Stettheimer to O’Keeffe, and delicate handmade cards by Arthur Dove and Helen Torr.

The library exhibition is open and free to the public by advance appointment Tuesday-Friday, 9am-noon. Please make an appointment online or contact the library for more information.