[audiobook] Texas Shipwrecks (Images of America) by Mark Lardas at Arts-Photography

Description

Georgia Orsquo;Keeffe (1887ndash;1986); the most famous woman artist of American modernism in the twentieth century and a pioneer in shaping abstract art; created an unprecedented; fiercely independent and intense world; focused as much on the grandeur of the high desert mesas and cliffs as on the smallest flower. A world has formed around Orsquo;Keeffe as well; incorporating the photographic nude studies of her by Alfred Stieglitz; a gallery impresario and leading advocate of photography as a fine art as well as Orsquo;Keeffersquo;s mentor and later husband; and the photographs of Orsquo;Keeffe in her later years.Nancy J. Scott examines Orsquo;Keeffersquo;s work; its evolution and the conflicts between the artistrsquo;s inner self and public personality; using a broad range of sources including many of Orsquo;Keeffersquo;s letters. Her letters exchanged with Stieglitz; long restricted by the terms of Orsquo;Keeffersquo;s will; show that her words could be as revelatory as her painting; as they intimately show her growing love for Stieglitz; and the tumult of their long union as artists. Orsquo;Keeffersquo;s reputation as a sexually inspired; Freudian-minded artist preceded the reception of her art in the gallery. Neither wholly abstract nor realist; but a melding of realist interpretations of flowers; bones; shells; rocks and the landscape; her art is structured with abstract design. She identified the power of landscape; discovered first in Texas and later in the desert of New Mexico; as a primary inspiration.Nancy J. Scottrsquo;s succinct yet comprehensive account of Orsquo;Keeffersquo;s long life and prolific body of work; and her presence at the forefront of American abstract art over eight decades; will both inform and fascinate.