Tag Archives: georgia o keeffe

Arts and Culture

Modern Art Monday Presents: Georgia O’Keeffe, Pelvis II

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pelvis by georgia okeeffe photo by gail worley
Photo By Gail

From 1943 to 1947, Georgia O’Keeffe painted a series that explored the intricate shapes and surfaces of animal bones. The bones were pictured in their entirety or in magnified detail. In this abstract variation, Pelvis II (1944) O’Keeffe draws attention to the blue sky seen through the empty socks. The work demonstrates her ability to present what the writer Jean Toomer described as “the universe through the portal of a bone.”

Photographed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan.

Arts and Culture

Modern Art Monday Presents: Red and Pink Rocks and Teeth By Georgia O’Keefe

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red and pink rocks and teeth photo by gail worley
Photo By Gail

Georgia O’Keeffe (1887 – 1986) was fascinated by the animal bones, weathered and worn, that she found in the desert in New Mexico. In Red and Pink Rocks and Teeth she presented a jawbone alongside two stacked rocks that appear both monumental and indeterminate. The smooth, rounded forms of the red and pinks rocks appear in enigmatic relation to one another, as the red pebble seems to recede from the picture plane even though it must be perched on top of the pink stone. Their abstracted forms and warm colors contrast sharply with the bleached, angular teeth and hard, cracked appearance  of the jawbone and together construct a tromp l’ceil that questions the nature or representation and perception.

Photographed in the Art Institute, Chicago.

Arts and Culture

Modern Art Monday Presents: Georgia O’Keeffe, Cow’s Skull: Red, White and Blue

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Cow's Skull Red White and Blue
Photo By Gail

Cow’s Skull: Red, White, and Blue (1931) prominently displays the three colors of the American flag. Painted at a time when American artists, musicians, and writers were interested in identifying a uniquely American style and subject matter for their work, Georgia O’Keeffe offered a dissenting opinion about what images could best symbolize America.

Rather than paying homage to the lush agricultural landscape as the Regionalist painters did, or uncovering urban problems like the American Scene painters, she used a weathered cow’s skull to represent the enduring spirit of America. Although she made it as a joke on the concept of the “Great American Painting,” the picture is a quintessential icon of the American West.

Georgia O’Keeffe’s Cow’s Skull: Red, White and Blue is part of the Alfred Stieglitz Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC.

Design and Innovation

Architect Zaha Hadid’s Sports Stadium Design Looks Like a Vagina

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Zaha Hadid Vagina Stadium
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London-based Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid has been forced to defend herself against claims that her design for Qatar’s Al-Wakrah stadium, which is in the process of being built for the 2022 football (soccer) World Cup, is based on the female genitalia, after images of the “vagina stadium” went viral two weeks ago. Continue reading Architect Zaha Hadid’s Sports Stadium Design Looks Like a Vagina →