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One of the most expensive contemporary artists,Georgia O’Keefe was elegant and inventive in everything from interior design to dresses,posing to photographers and cooking. It is proved by a spectacular exhibition in the Brooklyn Museum and an unusual cookbook of Georgia’s recipes, a bewitching project by an Australian writer and photographer Robyn Lea(below we cite one of the recipes).
Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern
The Brooklyn Museum offers to take a new look at how the most renowned US modernist artist proclaimed her progressive and independent lifestyle. The exhibition focuses on her wardrobe,key paintings and photographs.
In addition to selected paintings and items of clothing,the exhibition presents photographs of O’Keeffe and her homes by Alfred Stieglitz and other iconic individuals,including Ansel Adams,Annie Leibovitz,Philippe Halsman, Yousuf Karsh,Cecil Beaton,Andy Warhol, Bruce Weber,Todd Webb,and others.
An iconic image of Georgia O’Keeffe at her outdoor easel in 1960 in Albuquerque,New Mexico. Tony Vaccaro/Getty Images
"Georgia O’Keeffe(November 15,1887,San Prairie,USA — March 6,1986,Santa Fe,USA.) is an American artist,who became famous for her paintings of huge flowers. She had spent her early years in a farm,and later on missed the expanses of wilderness. While living in New York,the artist met with the photographer Alfred Stieglitz,who became her husband,her most loyal fan and the agent. In 1929,O’Keeffe first went on a trip to New Mexico and then bought a small house on the Ghost Ranch in 1940,where she finally moved to in 1949. She furnished her house with a rough wooden furniture and decorated it with skulls,stones,and Indian rugs she was fond of so much that her home seemed a part of the surrounding nature," — read biography of the artist in Arthive.
"The renowned modernist artist proclaimed her progressive,independent lifestyle through a self-crafted public persona—including her clothing and the way she posed for the camera," is mentioned in a press release.
Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern also includes works that entered the Brooklyn collection following O’Keeffe’s first-ever museum exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum in 1927. The museum celebrates this anniversary.
The exhibition is organized in chronological order. It runs from her early years,when O’Keeffe crafted a signature style of dress that dispensed with ornamentation. Then it passes to her years in New York,in the 1920s and 1930s,when a black-and-white palette dominated much in her artwork. And it ends with her later years in New Mexico,where her palette and clothing changed in response to the surrounding colors of the Southwestern landscape.
Left: Alfred Stieglitz. Georgia O’Keffe: A Portrait,1918. Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern is on display at the Brooklyn Museum until 23 July 2017.
Art kitchen: Georgia's bread
Meanwhile,the book entitled "Dinner With Georgia O’Keeffe: Recipes,Art & Landscape"(Assouline) by a researcher and photographer Robyn Lea was published in the USA in 2017. The idea of the project came up to Lea when she visited the Georgia O’Keeffe research center in New Mexico. "Instead of being handed the books that I had requested,the first thing I was presented with was a large,rectangular box," recalls Lea in the book’s preface. "Inside were dozens of recipes handwritten by O’Keeffe,a swath of recipe clippings saved from newspapers and magazines,and recipes written in an unknown handwriting."
Lea knew immediately that she’d stumbled on a treasure trove. No one has processed the box yet. It was a real gold mine,ranging from rye bread to madeleines to cranberry punch. Lea decided to compile these as not only a recipe book but also a larger study on O’Keeffe’s life and interests.
The resulting book,called by the author as "a culinary road map to the kitchen,garden,and table of Georgia O’Keeffe," offers a fleeting glimpse into the artist’s life. Juxtaposing images of the New Mexico landscape
The development of the genre from antiquity to the present day: how did religion and the invention of oil painting contribute to the development of the genre in Europe, and why was the Hudson River so important? Read more
with shots of O’Keeffe’s two homes in the state and images of her artworks,Lea draws a cobweb of interconnections between work,food,and landscapes. If these worlds may at first seem disparate,to Georgia they were undoubtedly connected.
O’Keeffe was a devotee of health foods. About 60 years ago,when the trend was barely emerging,she preferred whole grains,yogurt,which she made herself,and organic ingredients.
Fifty of O’Keeffe’s favorite recipes are presented in the book,from soups to sweet desserts,including Brightest Borscht with Sour Cream & Fresh Dill(see photo above), Christine’s Cream of Mushroom Soup,Hungarian-Style Chicken Paprika,Marinated Green Chile with Breakfast Eggs,Tortas de Huevos Tradicionales,Yogurt-Cucumber Dressing,and other dishes.
In New Mexico,which Georgia O’Keeffe visited from 1929 and where she eventually settled,she grew culinary plants in a kitchen garden and fruits in a garden. Bread making was a tradition in the farmhouse home where O’Keeffe grew up,and through her adulthood,even after she lost nearly all her sight,Georgia took pleasure in kneading dough for bread. She served her rye bread with James Keiller & Son marmalade,which she kept stocked in her pantry.
Georgia O’Keeffe’s Rye Bread
Ingredients:
2 cups rye flour,sifted 2 cups all-purpose flour,sifted,plus more for dusting 1 tsp salt 1 tsp whole caraway seeds 1 tsp ground anise seeds 1 tsp ground fennel seeds 1 Tbsp grated orange zest 1 ¾ cups lukewarm water 3 Tbsp honey 1(2-tsp) packet instant dry yeast,or 1(1-oz) cake yeast Vegetable oil,for the bowl and pan
Instructions: 1. Preheat the oven to 375°F. 2. In a bowl,combine the flours,salt,caraway seeds,anise,fennel,and orange zest. 3. In a separate bowl,combine the water,honey,and yeast. Let stand for 4−5 minutes,or until the yeast activates,then add this mixture to the flour mixture. 4. Mix with hands,then knead the dough on a floured surface for 5−6 minutes. 5. Lightly oil a large mixing bowl,place the dough inside,then cover it with a dish towel. Set in a warm place for about 1 hour,until risen by half. 6. Knead the dough for 2−3 minutes and shape it into a round loaf. 7. Place on an oiled sheet pan and cover with a lightly dampened dish towel. Let stand for 30−45 minutes,until risen again by half. 8. Bake for 30−35 minutes,or until golden brown. 9. Remove from the oven and check for doneness by tapping the bottom of the bread with fingertips or a wooden spoon—the bread will sound hollow when ready. Cool on a wire rack.
By the way,the author of the cookbook is not from novices in the art kitchen. In 2015,she wrote another similar book—Dinner With Jackson Pollock: Recipes,Art & Nature. The preface was written by the daughter of the artist Francesca Pollock,and the book features more than 50 recipes collected from handwritten pages scrawled by Jackson, his mother,Stella as well as his wife,artist Lee Krasner. The history of creating the book is similar to that of O’Keeffe’s: first Robyn Lea visited the East Hampton museum that was Pollock’s home for his last 10 years,followed by her valuable finding—the handwritten recipes… Like Georgia O’Keeffe,the artist baked his bread.
