The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum is dedicated to the perpetuation of the artistic legacy of Georgia O’Keeffe and to the study of her art within the context of American Modernsim. Eye of Modernism was one of a series of exhibitions sponsored by the Museum whose purpose is to illuminate O’Keeffe’s position in the art of her time.
Because O’Keeffe’s work is difficult to compartmentalize stylistically, she is most often described as an “American Modernist.” That generic term is broadly applied to many of the most forward-looking artists working in this country in the 20th century.
Eye of Modernism was not an exhaustive survey of 20th-century American art but, rather, an intimate look at a range of ideas that have defined the avant-garde in this country from the last decade of the 19th century. Because such ideas are often apparent in works in which the hand of the artist is clear, the exhibition was made up entirely of works on paper.
The exhibition included 65 works by 50 different painters and sculptures whose careers, to one degree or another, overlapped O’Keeffe’s and whose work continues to shape thinking about their time. There were drawings in a variety of mediums, including chalk, charcoal, colored pencil, crayon, graphite, ink, acrylic, casein, gouache, oil, pastel, watercolor and also mixed media, lithograph and collage. The artists included, among others, Thomas Hart Benton, Stuart Davis, Willem De Kooning, Preston Dickinson, Richard Diebenkorn, Sam Francis, Philip Guston, Carl Holty, Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, John Marin, Agnes Martin, Robert Motherwell, Georgia O’Keeffe, Philip Pearlstein, Jackson Pollack, Susan Rothenberg, Mark Rothko, Everett Shinn, John Sloan, Robert Smithson, Joseph Stella, Richard Tuttle, Cy Twombly, and Andy Warhol.
Eye of Modernsim was organized in celebration of the opening of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Research Center in July 2001. The Research Center is the first museum-affiliated facility in the country dedicated to the study of American Modernism. The exhibition also coincided with the Center’s opening symposium Defining American Modernism, July 12-14; an event that brought distinguished scholars from all over the country to Santa Fe to discuss the meaning of “modernism” in American art and culture. Click here for more information.
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. Everyone 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 academicism 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 movement that denies the validity of modernism even as it seeks definition as a reaction to modernism.
The result is that the art of the 20th 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.
Eye of Modernism was made possible, in part, through a generous grant from The Burnett Foundation. Additional support was received from the National Endowment for the Arts, New Mexico Arts a division of the Office of Cultural Affairs; and by the City of Santa Fe Arts Commission and the 1% Lodgers’ Tax.
We extend special thanks to the Milwaukee Art Museum as well as to the many others who generously loaned to this exhibition. They included several private collectors; Cynthia Drennon Fine Arts, Inc., Santa Fe; Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe; Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, St. Louis; Mr. and Mrs. Ronald K. Greenberg, St. Louis; Linda Hyman Fine Arts, New York; James Kelly Contemporary, Santa Fe; Emily Fisher Landau, New York; Grete Meilman Fine Art, Ltd., New York; David and Sherry Miller, Santa Fe; Kenneth Noland, North Bennington, Vermont; Martin and Caroline Proyect, Santa Fe; Lawrence Rubin-Greenberg Van Doren Fine Art, New York; Sperone Westwater Gallery, New York; Mr. and Mrs. Eugene V. Thaw, Santa Fe; Mr. and Mrs. John Van Doren, St. Louis; Joy S. Weber, Santa Fe; and Riva Yares Gallery, Santa Fe.