Georgia O'Keeffe's 'Tropical' Period
Georgia O’Keeffe is known for her vivid paintings of flowers, bleached bones and landscapes of New Mexico. But in 1939, she traveled to Hawai‘i and produced a series of lush, tropical paintings that are less well know today.
Now, for the first time in New York since the original showing in 1940, the New York Botanical Garden is presenting 17 of the 20 paintings she made during her nine-week visit to the islands. “Georgia O’Keeffe: Visions of Hawai‘i” also presents an installation in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory of more than 300 flowers and plants – from bright red heliconias to delicate white plumerias to pine cone like pineapples – that grow in Hawaii and that O’Keeffe may have seen during her visit. Also included are several plants that are native only to Hawai‘i, and rarely seen in the continental U.S.
While the images of crashing waves at the Black Lava Bridge on the Hāna Coast or the lush green valleys of the ‘Īao Valley, both in Maui, might surprise some visitors, what remains constant in O’Keeffe’s work is her effort to capture the essence of a place.
“These paintings feel so much that they are of Hawai‘I, they just glow with tropical color and feeling and I think that sets them apart,” said Joanna Groarke, director of public engagement and library exhibitions curator at the Garden. “You feel that you are seeing O’Keeffe’s work, but you are seeing O’Keeffe as you may have never seen her before.”
O’Keeffe wrote about her attempts to depict this tropical world in a letter to her husband, Alfred Stieglitz. "I just begin to be clear enough about Hawai‘i to feel that I have something to say about it and I must get at least one painting out of it that is a kind of color I have in mind. But I don’t get a hold of a new thing so quickly. It doesn’t happen in a minute."
As in previous shows at the Garden (such as the garden of Fried Kahlo and Claude Monet’s home at Giverny), pairing art works with the actual subjects gives visitors the chance to see the world through the artists’ eyes. After examining how O’Keeffe painted the shift in color from light pink to saturated red of a single hibiscus, you see those changes in the actual plant in the conservatory. And as you look closer at the plants and flowers in the exhibit, you also look closer at the unique world that is Hawai‘i.
And how did O'Keeffe end up there in the first place? The Hawaiian Pineapple Company commissioned her to create two works that could be used for future advertising campaigns. She decided to take advantage of the opportunity to visit the Aloha State and when she returned to New York, sent in her two pictures. One was of a dazzling red heliconia plant, the other, a papaya tree.
Not surprisingly, the pineapple company wanted a picture of a pineapple. The story goes that it sent her a pineapple plant. Eventually, O’Keeffe turned in a picture of budding pineapple, surrounded by bright green leaves, growing in the red dirt. That image was used in the final promotional campaign, along with the flower.
“Georgia O’Keeffe: Visions of Hawaii” at the New York Botanical Garden through October 28, 2018.
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