Shelton With Sunspots

This is actually one of my favorite O'Keeffes. The Shelton Hotel with Sunspots. The analogy likening the O'Keeffe flower to certain female parts is so tired, I just don't know what to say. (As if the resemblance denigrates her work). This image seems to offer the antithesis. Straight lines shooting upward, strong dark shadows, the sun and the sunspots which to me reference the influence of her husband photographer Alfred Stieglitz and the viewpoint of the camera. Very masculine. Curiously, Georgia always struck me as a particularly masculine female for her time. In her appearance and bearing, her independence and lack of frills. Her painting reveals it. There is a certain strength, assertiveness and abstraction to her work that balances the soft earthy flow of her forms.

I find her fascinating and truly inspiring.