American Modernism and Georgia O'Keeffe
Georgia O’Keeffe and her husband Alfred Stieglitz were instrumental in supporting a group of artists, including O’Keeffe, who created imagery that is now considered integral to the history of an art movement called American Modernism. Revolutionary at the time (early 1900s), Stieglitz felt strongly that American artists had the potential of creating art that was equal in importance to that of their European counterparts.
Our Museum is dedicated to promoting her legacy, which includes not only her art, but also situating it within the context of American Modernism – whether in shows devoted exclusively to O’Keeffe, exclusively to her contemporaries or a combination of both. This is our mission. This is a directive that came straight from O’Keeffe while she was still alive, and we honor her wishes.
Our Museum is dedicated to promoting her legacy, which includes not only her art, but also situating it within the context of American Modernism – whether in shows devoted exclusively to O’Keeffe, exclusively to her contemporaries or a combination of both. This is our mission. This is a directive that came straight from O’Keeffe while she was still alive, and we honor her wishes.
A Word About Modernism
Because of the broad range of styles that make up what is known as "modern" art, the term modernism is essentially meaningless as a descriptive term. It is like a sign with only an arrow pointing to the right, seen every day on a familiar road. Everybody knows the direction it refers to, but because it has no caption, no one seems to know exactly what it means.
If the word modern is defined as "up-to-date" or "of the present"--specifically as related to the latest styles, methods, or ideas--then modernism, as it describes the arts, implies general trends seen in the works of artists who seek to break with the past and find new modes of expression. Although "modernist" thinking can exist (and has existed) in any era, the term modernism is most often associated today with thinking that broke away from 19th-century academism and produced the astonishing advances by which the arts of the 20th century have been defined.
Thus, all that is sure is that modernism describes the attitude that generated most of the forward-looking art produced in the 20th century. That attitude was generally one of reaction, but to make matters even more complicated, reaction in any given decade was not always against the same thing or sets of things. Moreover, there was often a reaction against a reaction or a reaction within a reaction. One of the most interesting reactions materialized in the 1970s as post-modernism, a term describing an aesthetic position that denies the validity of modernism at that same time that it seeks definition as a reaction to it.
The result is that the art of the twentieth century is among the most complex and diverse in the history of art. Its complexity and diversity can be attributed to a number of things, of which perhaps the most important is the increasing speed with which information has been disseminated throughout the world with each new technological advance. As a result, modernist developments in America are for the most part intimately tied to modernist developments in Europe.
If the word modern is defined as "up-to-date" or "of the present"--specifically as related to the latest styles, methods, or ideas--then modernism, as it describes the arts, implies general trends seen in the works of artists who seek to break with the past and find new modes of expression. Although "modernist" thinking can exist (and has existed) in any era, the term modernism is most often associated today with thinking that broke away from 19th-century academism and produced the astonishing advances by which the arts of the 20th century have been defined.
Thus, all that is sure is that modernism describes the attitude that generated most of the forward-looking art produced in the 20th century. That attitude was generally one of reaction, but to make matters even more complicated, reaction in any given decade was not always against the same thing or sets of things. Moreover, there was often a reaction against a reaction or a reaction within a reaction. One of the most interesting reactions materialized in the 1970s as post-modernism, a term describing an aesthetic position that denies the validity of modernism at that same time that it seeks definition as a reaction to it.
The result is that the art of the twentieth century is among the most complex and diverse in the history of art. Its complexity and diversity can be attributed to a number of things, of which perhaps the most important is the increasing speed with which information has been disseminated throughout the world with each new technological advance. As a result, modernist developments in America are for the most part intimately tied to modernist developments in Europe.
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