American painter-exhibition

By Lee Minji

SEOUL, Nov. 11 (Yonhap) -- Celebrated as the "Mother of American Modernism," Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) is known for her pioneering works featuring motifs of flowers, animal bones and desert landscapes.

She was a leading figure in a new artistic wave in the first half of the 20th century that turned to American cities and landscapes when Paris was largely considered the center of the art world.

"Georgia O'Keeffe and American Modernism," an upcoming exhibition by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), brings together O'Keeffe's own paintings, as well as works by other key figures in American modernism.

The exhibition, set to begin Thursday at the Gwacheon branch of the MMCA, features nearly 120 artworks, including 16 paintings by O'Keeffe, according to the museum.

It also highlights the works of other artists, including Alfred Stieglitz, O'Keeffe's husband and an accomplished photographer; Arthur Dove; Marsden Hartley; and Charles Demuth.

The exhibition comprises three sections, beginning with the Alfred Stieglitz Collection, which O'Keeffe donated to the Art Institute of Chicago after his death. The collection features portraits of the American painter that Stieglitz took over the course of two decades.

The second section portrays how American modernist artists explored the changes of their times, including industrialization, through works, such as John Marin's "Woolworth Building (The Dance)," which captures a skyscraper boom in New York.

It also includes O'Keeffe's famous "Blue and Green Music," which shows how the painter developed a distinctive visual language that reconfigures forms and colors to translate music into painting.

The final section is dedicated to O'Keeffe's works inspired by New Mexico. It features paintings representing iconic images of the American Southwest, such as "Cow's Skull with Calico Roses," a painting of a cow's skull adorned with artificial calico flowers.

The MMCA said the exhibition will be an opportunity for viewers to see the biggest collection of O'Keeffe's works in the country to date and engage themselves with American modernism, and go beyond a Europe-centered perspective of Western art history.

"In the past, only one or two of O'Keeffe's paintings were presented at a time in Korea, so this is a rare opportunity for visitors to see 16 of her works together in one place, spanning the entirety of her career from her early to later years," Youn Tae-wook, acting director of the MMCA, said.

The exhibition runs through March 21.

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