ALFRED STIEGLITZ (1864–1946)

In 1918 Alfred Stieglitz closed his gallery 291, the locus of American Modernism, with a show dedicated to his newfound paramour, Georgia O’Keeffe. Two year prior, O’Keeffe, at the time an art teacher in Texas, mailed a series of charcoal drawings to her New York friend Anita Pollitzer. In turn, Pollitzer shared the drawings with Stieglitz, who was immediately enamored by O’Keeffe’s astute and confident abstractions. In April of 1917, Stieglitz mounted a show of ten vibrant watercolors by O’Keeffe at 291. O’Keeffe, intrigued by Stieglitz as much as by her upcoming exhibition, confessed in a letter to Pollitzer, 'Stieglitz—well it was him I went up to see—I just had to go, Anita, and I’m so glad I went!' From that point on the two lives became inextricably linked, begetting one of the strongest and most celebrated artistic bonds in American art. Each would go on to establish a formidable reputation as a powerhouse, renowned for an individualistic style that was emphatically his or her own. And yet, the dialogue—perhaps most notably and tellingly in the three-hundred-and-thirty-one photographs Stieglitz would go on to take of his beloved over the next two decades—remained fluid, organic and deeply engaging.

The permutation of the two artists’ relationship is evident in the portraits. While Stieglitz remained behind the camera, his presence is ever reflected in O’Keeffe's expression, demeanor and activity. As a pioneering champion of the hand-held camera, Stieglitz’s early snapshots of O’Keeffe from 1918 to 1921 are rife in spontaneity and romanticism. O’Keeffe is often seen mid-action—be it painting, fixing her hair or coquettishly posing. 'When I make a picture,' Stieglitz later candidly stated, 'I make love.' O’Keeffe, too, later recalled: 'I was photographed with a kind of heat and excitement and in a way wondered what it was all about.' In a 1921 retrospective of his work, Stieglitz exhibited nearly four-dozen portraits of O’Keeffe, many of which were nude. Their presence, in conjunction with Stieglitz’s writings about O’Keeffe, subsequently shaped interpretations of O’Keeffe’s paintings as sensual. Deterred and displeased by the overt sexualization of her work, O’Keeffe began to fuse her works with a realistic undertone that would come to define her art. In 1924 the two artists married, and O’Keeffe’s began enjoying international success and critical acclaim for her paintings. A few years later, in 1929, O’Keeffe sought the privacy granted by the sparsely populated stretches in the Southwest.

By the time O’Keeffe posed for the portrait offered in the current lot, she had discovered the beauty and peacefulness of Ghost Ranch in Santa Fe, which would become her home every summer and fall for the next four decades. As opposed to her portraits by Stieglitz from the late 1910s and early 1920s, in this portrait, taken in 1935, O’Keeffe is visibly more in control of her depiction. She intently looks back at Stieglitz’s lens with poise and affection, as a gentle smile peeks from under a penetrating gaze. Her arms emerge from a shawl of Native American design to frame her face. Her face, now lined and contoured, is reflective of the challenges and accomplishments of the sitter as much as of the loving eye that captured it.