FA 157 Georgia O’Keeffe: Art and Life
Prof. Nancy Scott
Spring 2018
Office: 210 Mandel
Tu- Friday 12:30 – 1:50 PM, Mandel TBA
scott at brandeis.edu
Office Hours: Monday 3:30-4:30PM;
Tuesday 2:00-3:30 PM or by appointment
This course counts toward the major and minor in Fine Arts, the major and graduate program in Women, Gender and Sexuality, and the Creative Arts requirement.
Course Goals and Requirements:
- One museum analysis paper – Choose from:Georgia O’Keeffe: Art, Image, Style(on view at the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem), the MFA 20th Century collection - the American Wing; or the Brandeis Material Culture Lab. (20%) Due March 29.
- Research paper of c. 10-15 pages covering a topic of compelling interest to the student, chosen in consultation with the instructor. Outline and thesis statement with preliminary bibliography, due April 10.
- Final research paper (25%). Due April 25.
- Class presentations on the semester project to be scheduled April 24-25. (10%)
- 4 short research papers, as listed in syllabus, focused on issues discussed in class. (30%). See separate sheet, with due dates for topics for reports and papers.
- Good attendance and participation in class discussions (15%).
Learning goals:
- To interpret the pictorial and critical language of American modernism through O’Keeffe’s work and words, and that of her peer artists.
- To explore and analyze the exchange of the fine arts, by visiting and studying museum exhibitions, especially in photography, sculpture, painting and history of dress.
- To document intersections of cultures in the American art world from the 1920s – notably in the work of African-American artists, musicians and writers during the Harlem Renaissance, the lure of Native American culture, and artistry from the indigenous culture in the American Southwest. [These areas are strengthened at Brandeis by the opportunity to study the Carl Van Vechten photographic collection in Special Collections, and Native American cultural production, in the Material Culture Lab.]
To master these goals, students will give a series of brief oral reports, practice succinct directed writing assignments that deal with art criticism, visual analysis of the art object, and study the rich cultural history and range of artists intertwined with O’Keeffe’s long life.
Textbooks:
Recommended for purchase: David Bjelajac, American Art: A Cultural History (2005); Sarah Greenough, My Faraway One: Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz, 1915-1933, Vol I (2011); N. Scott Georgia O’Keeffe: Critical Lives (2015).
All readings that are requiredon Latte.
Readings and weekly topics:
Week beginning...
Jan 12Introduction to the art of Georgia O’Keeffe and her origins
Scott, Introduction, and Ch. 1 “Family Untied” pp. 7-15; 16-33
G. Pollock, “Seeing O’Keeffe Seeing” Georgia O’Keeffe, pp. 103-114.
Jan 16American Realists: From the Eight to the Ashcan School
The Armory Show and Feminism before World War I
America’s shock of the “new” - avant-garde work from Europe
Bjelajac, D. American Art: A Cultural History (2005), ON RESERVE.
1) Ch 7: Modernist Art and Politics, 1905-41. “Modern Realists,” 300-07
2) The Armory Show and its cultural impact
Bjelajac, “Modernism and Political Radicalism, The Armory Show,”
318-21 [RESERVE]
Jan 23 LivesGeorgia O’Keeffe – origins and early career
Week of the O’Keeffe biography discussion.
Scott, O’Keeffe, ch. 2. “Charcoal Landscapes,” pp.34-55.
O’Keeffe on O’Keeffe (1976): autobiographical memoir. Analysis of narrative / images.
Georgia O’Keeffe, Georgia O’Keeffe (Penguin Edition: 1976). Deluxe 1st edition or library on reserve(also available in Special Collections).
W. Corn “Telling Tales: Georgia O’Keeffe on Georgia O’Keeffe,”
American Art, Vol. 23/2 (2009), pp. 54-79.
Lynes, B. O’Keeffe, Stieglitz and the Critics, 1916-29. U. Chicago Press: 1989), “Introduction” and “The Background and Early Reviews,” pp 3-26.
Selections from O’Keeffe’s critics – excerpts in full to be assigned.
Jan 26Alfred Stieglitz and his early history – the Gallery at 291 Fifth Avenue; European training and the ambition to build an American art
Greenough, “Alfred Stieglitz, Rebellious Midwife…” Modern Art and America, pp. 23-53.
How I came to know Stieglitz: introduction to the Stieglitz Circle
How does O’Keeffe meet Stieglitz? How do the other exhibited artists of the 291 Gallery first meet Stieglitz?
Class Assignment: Prepare oral report on one artist of your choice, and submit written report by Friday (Feb. 2).
Jan 30Work The Stieglitz Circle at “291” Fifth Avenue: American painting - 1910-17
Stieglitz ‘first’ Circle photographers, the Photo-Secession from 1902 – 1915: Gertrude Käsebier and Edward Steichen; Anne Brigman;
1909-10: First American exhibitions: John Marin and Alfred Maurer, Marsden Hartley
From 1917: O’Keeffe, Paul Strand and Charles Sheeler
Bjelajac, “Modernist Art and World War I; Synchromism,” pp. 321-25.
Suggested: 1) Chas. Eldredge, “Nature Symbolized” in M. Tuchman, ed., The Spiritual in Art Abstract Painting 1885-1985.
2) Wanda Corn, “Spiritual America,” The Great American Thing: Modern Art and National Identity, 1915-1935, pp. 3-40.
Feb 2O’Keeffe and feminism of the pre-war period
Musser, “1913: A Feminist Moment in the Arts,” pp. 169-77.
The Armory Show at 100: Revolution and Modernism, eds. Marilyn Satin Kushner and Kimberly Orcutt, New York Historical Society (New York and London, 2013).
Texts from 20th century feminism: Floyd Dell, Women as World Builders (1913), chapter on Isadora Duncan, pp. 41-51.
Feb 6The ‘SKY’ and the First World War
Scott, Ch. 3 Painting in Canyon: “Between Heaven and Earth,” pp. 55-76
S. Greenough , My Faraway One, selected letters. TBA.
O’Keeffe Museum, Watercolors: 1916-18, ed. Amy von Lintel, 2016. On Reserve.
O’Keeffe and the impact of art photography: Stieglitz photographer - the Woman.
Scott, ch. 4: “Woman,” pp. 77-94.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Georgia O’Keeffe: A Portrait by Alfred Stieglitz (1978) Introduction, plus study plates: 27-53 (Library reserve)
Suggested: Pyne, Modernism and the Feminine Voice, ch. 4: “O’Keeffe and the 1920s,‘’ pp. 191-266.
Feb. 9 O’Keeffe and the Critics – Art and Interpretation
Women and contradictions of post-suffrage vote: lens of Freudian theory; eroticism, “deadliness” and mysticism
Scott, ch. 5 “New York: The Nimbus of Lustre,” pp. 95-113.
Feb 12Lynes, O’Keeffe and the Critics, 1916-29 (1989): Excerpts from the critical responses to O’Keeffe early 1920s exhibitions, and O’Keeffe’s own statements.
Examples: O’Keeffe, “Catalogue Statements” from MSS. 1922 and her 1923 first show “Alfred Stieglitz Presents” (Scans on LATTE).
Choose one article/ example. We will contrast both men and women writers’ approach to comprehending O’Keeffe’s abstract work; also analysis of O’Keeffe’s movement away from abstraction in 1924, and the issue of ‘American’ in 1929 at the first MOMA exhibition of 19 Living Americans.
Suggested: Watson Forbes, “The All American Nineteen.” The ARTS (January 1930).
Feb 16Guest Lecturer – TBA.
February 19-23 Winter Break
Feb 27Stieglitz andinnovations inphotography, from the 1890s to 1918.
Hamilton and Greenough, Alfred Stieglitz (1983), pp. 12-32.
Study photographs (book with numerous full-page images on reserve).
Elizabeth H. Turner, “O’Keeffe as Abstraction,” in Barbara Haskell, ed. O’Keeffe: Abstraction, Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, 2009), pp. 57-68.
March 6Peabody Essex Museum, Salem Class trip TBA – Friday afternoon, from 12:30 PM.
For reference: Corn, Georgia O’Keeffe: Making Modern (2017). On reserve.
March 13O’Keeffe and the Southwest
Scott, ch 6: “New Mexico: I Feel like Bursting”, 114-133.
N. Scott, “Following in the Footsteps: The Georgia O’Keeffe Trail.” Art New England, Fall 2001.
MFA trip –Date TB Scheduled. American Wing with “Making Modern” installation. Prints and Drawings special collections to view Stieglitz photographs, and works on paper by O’Keeffe, Dove, Demuth, Marin.
Recommended: Truettner, “The Art of Pueblo Life,” ch. 3, in Art in New Mexico:Paths to Santa Fe and Taos, pp.59-99.
Busselle and Stack, Paul Strand: Southwest (Aperture, 2004), pp. TBA.
March 20Breadlines and Streamlines
Scott, ch 7 “The Great Depression: New York and Lake George,”pp. 134-152.
Jean Toomer, Waldo Frank and literature of African-American culture;
Precisionism and Art Deco; Women in photography: the 1930s
Bjelajac, “Art Deco and Modernity” pp. 332-5.
N. Scott, “Submerged: Arthur Dove’s “Goin’ Fishin” and its Hidden History,”Word & Image: (2007). Latte.
March 23 Introduction to Library Archives—Special Collections:
Carl Van Vechten Photographs. Paper due on Friday, March 27.
Meet at Library entrance for class in the University Archives and Special Collection, with assistance of the Special Collections Librarian.
O’Keeffe’s relationships with African- American culture 1920s-1940s Carl Van Vechten, Dr. Albert Barnes and Jean Toomer.
Bjelajac, “Harlem Renaissance,” pp. 335-39.
March 27Precisionism – between Photography and Painting.
Tsujimoto, “Introduction,” and “What is Precisionism,”Images of America: Precisionist Painting and Modern Photography, pp. 13-20; 21-25.
Rose Art Museum class.
Tuesday : Meet at the Rose Art Museum class. Focus on works in the collection by John Marin, Marsden Hartley, Charles Demuth, Stuart Davis and Paul Strand.
Reading: American Modernism: The First Wave, Rose Art Museum catalogue (1963), Introduction by Edith Halpert and essay by Sam Hunter (10 pp).
Charles Sheeler: Corn, Great American Thing, ch. 6 “Home Sweet Home,” pp. 293-237.
Precisionism: What was the movement in art? Who was a Precisionist?
The Southwest - Part II
Scott, ch 8 “Ghost Ranch” 153-73.
Sense of place: sites of O’Keeffe paintings; Native American culture – pueblo painters and the arts
W. Jackson Rushing III "Pictures of Katchina Tithu: Georgia O'Keeffe and Southwest Modernism" pp. 19-40, in Georgia O'Keeffe in New Mexico: Architecture, Katsinim, and the Land, O'Keeffe Museum, exhibition catalogue (Santa Fe, 2012).
Charles Eldredge, et al., “The Faraway Nearby,” in Art in New Mexico: Paths to Santa Fe and Taos, 147-180
March 29 Visual Analysis paper due. Choices for your museum paper from the Rose, Special Collections or the MFA: Choose any of the Anglo painters, early modernist painters in the galleries, photographers of Southwestern subjects, or Native American watercolors or ritual objects.
March 30- April 6 Spring Break
April 10O’Keeffe and literature: The Book Room, writers, and friends
E. Glassman, ed. The Book Room: Georgia O’Keeffe’s Library in Abiquiu. (1997). Discussion of O’Keeffe’s literary tastes and book collection.
Selected letters. (Selected S. Greenough letters, and those to Anita Pollitzer, 1915-17. (Latte).)
D. H. Lawrence in New Mexico:
Bonnie Grad, “Georgia O’Keeffe’s Lawrencean Vision” Archives of American Art Journal, Vol. 38, no. 3/4 (1998), p. 2-19.
Suggested: W. Corn, “The Great American Thing” ch. 5, pp. 239-291.
Other women artists of O’Keeffe’s world – New York, New England
Marguerite Zorach, Florine Stettheimer, Helen Torr
Beyond the Stieglitz Circle: From Gerald Murphy to Stuart Davis.
Suggested: Corn, Ch 2 “An American in Paris,”pp. 91-133.
April 17Beyond Stieglitz: Photography from Edward Steichen to Ansel Adams; the ascendancy of LIFE magazine and women photographers - Margaret Bourke-White and Dorothea Lange.
Stuart Davis and the New York/ Paris symbiosis
B. Grad, “Stuart Davis and Contemporary Culture,” Artibus et Historiae, Vol. 12/24 (1991), pp. 165-91.
Peters, Becoming O’Keeffe, ch 6: O’Keeffe’s relation to photographers in the Stieglitz Circle, pp. 183-221.
Steichen’s later career, and the work of Ansel Adams.
April 24O’Keeffe as minimalist: Patio Door series, icon of the American Southwest, Life Magazine and Artforum.
Scott, ch. 9 Sky Above Clouds, pp. 174-96; Epilogue, “Ancient Spirit,”, pp. 197-203.
DISCUSSION: O’Keeffe in 1946 and in 1963-70.
Considering the 1963 Rose exhibition in context, and O’Keeffe’s 1966 retrospective at the Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth.
Barbara Rose, “O’Keeffe’s Originality,” The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum
(Catalogue: 1997), pp. 99-112.
Brennan, Marcia, Painting Gender, Constructing Theory: “The Contest for “the Greatest American Painter of the Twentieth Century” – Debate between AlfredStieglitz and Clement Greenberg,” ch. 8, pp. 232-71.
April 24-25 Student reports on final research paper
Final Research Paper Due— April 27th.
N. B. Course Details and Best Practices
Please note that your class attendance and participation is 15% of your semester average. It is expected that you will spend an average of at least three hours for each hour spent in class, that is nine hours/ week outside class (reading assignments, writing papers, organizing study materials for reports, and research assignments). There are museum assignments linked to the writing projects for this course, and you should take time to enjoy spending preparation time in exploring area museums.
Policy on classroom standards. For the key points on academic integrity, please familiarize yourself with the rights and responsibilities handbook.
Plagiarism is not tolerated at Brandeis University.
Use of cell phones in class, for talking, texting or reading/writing email is prohibited. No texting under the table! You will be asked to leave the room if this is detected. I find that students using laptop computers in class is distracting to me and other students, so please be present in the classroom.
A Note on Course Engagement:Discussion is important, the cultivation of the brain even better. Taking notes, and the eye-to-hand coordination of brain synapses in an art history course candefinitely aid general retention, and also involvement, in class lectures. Margin sketches and doodles drawn from the works of art discussed are recommended!
If you are a student with a documented disability at Brandeis University, please speak to the instructor immediately; this will always be confidential. Also if you have a documented reason for the use of classroom aids, please inform the professor at the beginning of term.
Extensions will not be granted via e-mail; you must speak with instructor in person about any missed deadlines, or anticipated needs for an extension. Should you have an unavoidable medical or family emergency, please present a written note with your request.
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