Quote o' the Day: Georgia O'Keeffe

Georgia O'Keeffe, Blue and White Abstraction, 1958

-

"Nothing is less real than realism. Details are confusing. It is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis, that we get at the real meaning of things."

—Georgia O'Keeffe

-

Quoted in Jonathan Stulman and Barbara Buhler Lynes, Georgia O’Keeffe: Circling Around Abstraction, West Palm Beach, Florida, 2007, p. 22. The painting sold at Sotheby's yesterday for $615,000.

(Posted by) Mike
(Thanks to pmartini)

Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

B&H Photo • Amazon US • Amazon UK
Amazon Germany • Amazon Canada • Adorama

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

No featured comments yet—please check back soon!

Comments

[Eolake]

I love that.
I’ve always loved abstraction.
Only by ignoring the literal can we show the truth.

By the way, O’Keefe had such a great understanding of light, this painting *feels* like a photograph.

[Speed]

Who strive—you don't know how the others strive
To paint a little thing like that you smeared
Carelessly passing with your robes afloat,—
Yet do much less, so much less, Someone says,
(I know his name, no matter)—so much less!
Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged.

From Andrea del Sarto by Robert Browning.

[John Camp]

What a crock.

[Rob Campbell]

Sounds reasonable enough.

Too much information can be ultimately depressing. That's what soft lights and mood music are for, and a little bit of wine completes the illusion and makes people go home happy and convinced they had a great time.

:-)

[c.d.embrey]

“Here's all you have to know about men and women: women are crazy, men are stupid. And the main reason women are crazy is that men are stupid.” Says George Carlin.

To help her keep her sanity, Georgia O'Keeffe lived in New Mexico for part of the year—while her Husband Alfred Stieglitz stayed in New York.

[David Evans]

I love that painting. I had never seen it before. Thank you.

[John]

I recognize a pattern: someone needs to finish his Fuji camera review but just can’t get around to it and writes about tons of other things instead. I’m very good at that too...

[Del Bomberger]

Reminds me of how I view fiction vs nonfiction. I've always felt the greatest truths were revealed in fiction and the greatest lies in nonfiction.

[Richard Tugwell]

I love quotes like that, even if they aren't actually helpful for practitioners!

"There is no such thing as Art, only artists"