Day Out

Hello, it is Friday again and here we are joining with Five on Friday with Amy at Love Made My Home. How is it that Friday's come round so quickly?

This week I had a day out to London to meet up with a friend and visit the Georgia O'Keeffe Exhibition at Tate Modern. We do not get together as much as we used to so it is a real treat to have a good old natter, catch up on news and visit a Gallery at the same time. We had both wanted to see the exhibition so it was a good excuse to meet up at Euston Station and have a day out.

Georgia O'Keeffe was not an artist I knew well. Like many others I was familiar with her flower paintings and the innuendo that was attached to them. She always opposed the sexualised readings of her work throughout her life. One wonders, if that was not created by others, particularly as she was a female artist in a man's world at the beginning of the 20th Century. 

Georgia O'Keeffe's was born in 1887 in Wisconsin and declared a desire to be an artist from an early age. She died in 1986 at the age of 98 after a career spanning seven decades. She suffered from macular degeneration and lost central vision in the 1970's and made her final drawing in 1984. 

I found the exhibition fascinating because it represented different periods throughout her long career. 

Here are just five of the artworks that appealed to me, although the list could have been much longer.

Special No. 9 1915
Charcoal on paper

From the Lake No.1 1924
Oil paint on canvas

Oriental Poppies 1927
Oil paint on canvas

Grey Hill Forms 1936
Oil paint on canvas

It Was Blue and Green 1960
Oil paint on canvas

Normal I prefer figurative art rather than abstract, as I generally feel more comfortable knowing what I am looking at. At this exhibition it was the abstracted work that caught me most. The movement of the line and the amazing blending of the colours just made me want to twirl and dance along with them. 

Very uplifting and not what I had expected at all.

Despite failing health in the 1970's, Georgia O'Keeffe collaborated with potter-sculptor Juan Hamilton who became her assistant and close friend. He taught her to work with clay at this time when she must have been in her nineties.
How wonderful, after a lifetime as an accomplished and celebrated artist, having the passion to learn new techniques.

A great day shared with a good friend.
Thanks L, until next time.