Dove/O´Keeffe: Circles of Influence

From the outset of her career, Georgia O´Keeffe credited her introduction to modernism as deriving in part from a reproduction of a pastel by Arthur Dove she saw around 1913. By this time Dove was well established as the foremost modernist artist in America, yet O´Keeffe herself would later become a source of renewal for his work.Renowned scholar Debra Bricker Balken here offers the first investigation into the interrelationship between these two great artists. She shows that while Dove´s sensual evocations of landscape - his abstractions of nature´s undulating rhythms and forms - offered inspiration for O´Keeffe, the influence of O´Keeffe´s work on Dove was equally significant. After 1930, Dove turned to O´Keeffe´s early works for renewed aesthetic inspiration, mining, as he put it, her ´burning watercolors´.Beyond examining the impact of these mutual influences, this beautifully illustrated publication situates Dove and O´Keeffe within the circle of Alfred Stieglitz, and brings them into a fuller context within the modernist scene of the 1920s and 1930s. What emerges is a fascinating look at the first pivotal moment of modernism in America.