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A Major Georgia O'Keeffe Show Comes to Australia for the First Time

Her work will be shown alongside paintings by two key Australian modernists.
Georgia O'Keeffe's "Blue Line" (1919). All images courtesy of Heide Museum of Modern Art.

Georgia O’Keeffe is one of American modernism’s most enduring figures, but there's never been a major exhibition of her works in Australia before now. The artist's first voyage here had to be special—so rather than staging a retrospective of her art that could have been shown in any international gallery, the curatorial team wanted to place the iconic painter into an Antipodean context. This October, O’Keeffe, Preston and Cossington Smith: Making Modernism will explore O'Keeffe's oeuvre in depth—alongside works by Grace Cossington Smith and Margaret Preston, two artists who helped pioneer twentieth century painting down under.

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The three artists in the show worked independently of one another—Preston and Cossington Smith met less than a handful of times, and neither was acquainted with O’Keeffe. But curators quickly discerned that the painters shared similar artistic concerns. “There are amazing parallels between each of their practices and their approaches not only to modernism, but to still life and landscape,” Heide curator Lesley Harding tells The Creators Project.

All three painters sought to make familiar subjects like floral arrangements and bowls of fruit seem new and even transgressive, experimenting with colour, light and perspective in unprecedented ways. Yet perhaps the strongest tie between the three artists is a complicated relationship with European painting—a combined desire to participate in the established modernist tradition, but also evolve from it.

Margaret Preston's "Western Australian Gum Blossom" still life (1928)

Preston, Cossington Smith and O'Keeffe all made a conscious choice to participate in local art movements, although the temptation to move abroad to Europe would have been overwhelming—particularly for the Australians. As Harding explains, all three artists shared a desire to adapt modernism to their own particular, geographically-located ends.

“I think for people who are far from Europe, it became increasingly relevant not to locate Europe as a centre of all modernist art,” says Harding. “The early ideals from Cezanne and Gauguin and Van Gogh became common ground, but a lot of those non-European artists moved beyond original works and developed their own style of painting and interests that became a lot more particular to their locations. That’s what we were interesting in fleshing out—the way that modernist paintings took on the inflection and particularities, the vernacular qualities of the environment in which they're painted.”

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Grace Cossington Smith's "Sea Wave" (1931)

O'Keeffe captured those qualities well, and her representations of Americana are revelatory. The artist worked in New York but also travelled frequently to New Mexico, eventually moving there permanently. It was there that she felt most at home, and most inspired by the natural environment she saw around her. “You've got this combination of being in the thick of the international art scene in New York, then this desire to paint what she thought was a more American spirit,” Harding says.

The artist was absorbed by the stark beauty of the New Mexico desert and its unforgiving climate. Her depictions of bleached bones and animal skulls juxtaposed with bright blooming flowers communicate the dual harshness and beauty of the landscape.

Georgia O'Keeffe's "Ram's Head, Blue Morning Glory" (1938)

Meanwhile, Preston and Cossington Smith both travelled to Europe in their formative years and then returned to Australia to settle in Sydney. Both artists were simultaneously fascinated and repelled by the work they saw in France and Germany, understanding that merely copying European styles would do the uniqueness of the Australian landscape an injustice.

Like O’Keeffe, both artists were eager to depict the idiosyncrasies of their homeland, often through still life paintings. While the still life was considered a subject for amateurs as opposed to serious artists, as modernists all three painters aimed to breathe new life into the discipline. Their depictions of blooming native flowers are not only highly skilled but also pointedly Australian.

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Margaret Preston's "Aboriginal Flowers" (1928)

Preston was among the first Australian artists to incorporate Aboriginal motifs in her work, and the influence of indigenous art is felt particularly in her still life scene Aboriginal Flowers, which references the colours of the Aboriginal flag.

The artist became known for her unique linocuts and paintings of native flora, while Cossington Smith’s paintings of the Sydney Harbour bridge in various stages of completion are now enduring symbols of Sydney modernism.

Grace Cossington Smith's "The bridge in building" (1929)

What's special about Making Modernism is that the exhibition promises not only to finally give Australian audiences a glimpse of O’Keeffe’s work, but also to place two key Australian modernist painters into the international context they deserve. It is not just one distinct personality that emerges from the show, but three.

“There were parallels not only artistically but also in their lives, what they did and where they moved,” Harding says. “They all did something very future thinking, and they all shared a great foresight about national art in one way or another.”

O’Keeffe, Preston and Cossington Smith: Making Modernism opens at Melbourne's Heide Museum of Modern Art from October 12 - February 19. It will then show at Queensland Art Gallery from March 11 - June 11, and continue to the Art Gallery of New South Wales between July 1 and October 1.

Related:

Geology Gets Deep Dreamed into Georgia O'Keeffe-Like Abstractions

Petra Collins Reimagines Georgia O'Keeffe's Life and Work in Feminist Short Film

From Van Gogh To Jeff Koons, Here’s a History of Flowers in Art