Georgia O'Keeffe and the Calla Lily in American Art, 1860-1940

October 03, 2002 - January 14, 2003

Since its opening in 1997, the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum has organized numerous exhibitions of O'Keeffe's work in order to illuminate the uniqueness and significance of her important contribution to American art. It also presents exhibitions, such as Georgia O'Keeffe and the Calla Lily in American Art, 1860–1940, which was organized in celebration of the Museum's 5th Anniversary, whose purpose is to define O'Keeffe's place within the history of American art by presenting her work alongside that of other American artists.

The waxy white blooms and spear-headed leaves of the calla lily began to appeal to American artists shortly after the exotic plant was first imported from South Africa to America in the mid-nineteenth century. In the early twentieth century, the calla lily began to enjoy a heightened popularity, and particularly in the 1920s and 1930s, when dozens of painters and photographers of varying reputations and approaches to image-making made it the subject of their work.

The exhibition Georgia O'Keeffe and the Calla Lily in American Art, 1860–1940, was the first to examine the great appeal of this exotic flower as a subject for American painters and photographers. It presented a visual feast of 54 depictions of the calla by 33 different artists, such as Imogen Cunningham, Charles Demuth, Marsden Hartley, Rebecca James, Georgia O'Keeffe, Joseph Stella, and Edward Weston. Its nine paintings of this elegant bloom by O'Keeffe, six by Hartley, and one by Demuth acknowledged the importance of this subject to the Stieglitz circle of modernist artists. Those by O'Keeffe, who became known as "The Lady of the Lily" in the 1920s because of the frequency and compelling ways in which she depicted the flower, defined her achievement with respect to this subject and within the context of that of other American artists.

The exhibition catalogue, published by Yale University Press in association with the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, presents an introduction by Barbara Buhler Lynes, curator, Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, who is also The Emily Fisher Landau director of the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Research Center, and two essays on the history and meaning of the calla lily; one by James Moore, director, The Albuquerque Museum, and another by Charles C. Eldredge, Hall Distinguished Professor of American Art and Culture at the University of Kansas. The catalogue includes color plates of each work in the exhibition, an exhibition checklist, biographical information about the artists, and a selected bibliography.

Georgia O'Keeffe and the Calla Lily in American Art, 1860–1940, organized by the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, was made possible by The Burnett Foundation and the National Advisory Council of the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. Additional support was received from The Brown Foundation Inc., Houston, McCune Charitable Foundation, and the City of Santa Fe Arts Commission and the 1% Lodgers' Tax.

Exhibition Schedule

Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe, New Mexico October 3, 2002 – January 14, 2003

Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Tennessee February 23 – May 4, 2003

Muscarelle Museum of Art, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia May 31 – August 10, 2003