Published on the occasion of an exhibition held at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Sept. 17, 2009-Jan. 17, 2010, the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C., Feb. 6-May 9, 2010, and the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe, N.M., May 28-Sept. 12, 2010.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 224-225) and index.

Although Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) has long been celebrated as a central figure in twentieth-century art, the abstract works she created throughout her career have remained overlooked by critics and the public in favor of her representational subjects. In 1915, O'Keeffe leaped into abstraction with a group of charcoal drawings that were among the most radical works of art produced in the United States at that time. In these and subsequent abstractions, O'Keeffe sought to transcribe her ineffable thoughts and emotions. While her output of abstract work declined after 1930, she returned to abstraction in the mid-1940s with a new vocabulary that provided a precedent for a younger generation of abstractionists. By devoting itself to this largely unexplored area of her work, Georgia O'Keeffe: Abstraction is an overdue acknowledgment of her place as one of America's first abstract artists. In addition to rethinking O'Keefe's contribution to the development of abstract American art, this book chronicles the shifts and changes in subject matter and style over the span of her long career. It adds significant new insight into her work and life, reproducing excerpts of previously sealed letters written by O'Keeffe to photographer and gallerist Alfred Stieglitz, whom she married in 1924. These previously unpublished letters, along with other primary documents referenced by the authors, offer an intimate glimpse into her creative method and intentions as an artist.

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