o’keeffe – FTN-blog

Alfred Stieglitz met Georgia O’Keeffe at a time when he was already at the top of his game. Twenty years her senior, the photographer and gallerist was more than just a partner for the younger artist – he also served as her mentor. He was the first to exhibit her abstract drawings and helped nurture her into the respected painter she would grow to become. O’Keeffe’s talents eventually led her to New Mexico, and the couple’s relationship consisted of little more than love letters sent back and forth until his death. The ultimate testament to the power of long distance relationships, each of the 20,000 letters has since been collected for the book “My Faraway One: Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keefe and Alfred Stieglitz”. Maybe it’s just us, but Noah’s 365 letters to Allie in The Notebook suddenly seem a lot less romantic.

These and other Stieglitz /O’Keeffe titles are available at www.ftn-books.com

This morning after visiting a local flowershop, setup every year near a field where these are grown, i realized that we always have a lot of flowers at home. The owner cut the flowers from the field while i was there. It is a wide variety of sorts that is now available and they all give color and atmosphere to the house.

The moment he came to me with the 2 freshly cut bundles of wild and cultivated flowers i knew the subject for todays blog, because at this moment the realization occurred to me ,that flowers are important in art too. Many artists have used the subject of flowers in their works. From very realistic. like Erik Andriesse to more abstract like Leo van Gestel ( from both www.ftn-books.com has publications available).

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But for many these will not be very well known or familiar names, but there are many more…… How about Monet? a flower painter “pur sang” and Vincent van Gogh.

Just look at all the great names in art, even the almost abstract painters, They all draw inspiration from flowers. Perhaps the most beautiful ones come from Georgia Ao’Keeffe. Realistic, dreamlike and mystic these are perhaps the very best flower paintings in the world.

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