... I had the opportunity, at the last minute, to see the
Georgia O'Keefe exhibition at the Tate last month...
London, looking from the Southbank |
The gallery had opened in June and this was my very first
visit to the building. The tube dropped
me off in Southwark, the birth place of a number of generations of my
ancestors. As I took the short stroll
from the station to the gallery I couldn't help but wonder what the streets
would have looked like to those earlier generations. In amongst the modern buildings were much older ones that were
now apartments and belying their previous industrial past. As I walked by the old pub on Great Suffolk
Street, I wondered if any of my ancestors might have spent any time there.
The Tate is a stunning piece of modern architecture that
has been blended with an existing old building. In no way is it out of place here. As I find the right floor for the exhibition I am distracted by
the glorious views of the city on the north bank. St Paul's is standing head and shoulders above other buildings. And no, despite the name I can't claim Sir
Christopher as a direct ancestor. But I
like to think that maybe we share some ancient link.
Oriental Poppies* |
Georgia O'Keefe was an abstractionist - this is new
terminology to me. It was her paintings
of the New York skyline and flowers that first drew my attention to her some 10
or so years ago. Then, in 2014, I read
in the paper, that her 1932 painting 'Jimson Weed/White Flower No 1' had sold
for $44.4m and I knew I had to know more about her and her work.
I skipped some of the early rooms so that I could see the
flower paintings and they are truly stunning.
As I stood in front of Jimson Weed I marvelled at the price for the
canvas, which is a fairly modest 120cms by 100cms. Apparently, if you stack 1m dollar bills they will reach a height
of over 300ft. Add another 43 blocks
of greenbacks to that and you would probably be way out in space somewhere, I
think! Then another equally bizarre
thought struck me, if the ;purchaser had insisted on paying for the painting in actual paper money, where would the bank put all those dollar bills? Hmmm...
White Rose* |
What particularly mesmerises me about the flower
paintings are the colours which display the shapes of the leaves and
petals. A friend of mine, a painter
also, once told me that instead of looking for the shapes she 'looked for the
light and shade in the colours'. I
stand before each canvas and try to do the same.
O'Keefe died in 1986 and the commentary that accompanied the exhibition
includes recordings of her talking about her work. I'm fascinated to hear that she sees the colours. After a whole afternoon with such amazing
pieces of art, I think I half-way know what she means.
* In the shop at the Tate it is possible to buy little pieces of Georgia O'Keefe's work in the form of cards like these - so I did!
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