{"id":1446,"date":"2018-04-11T01:46:03","date_gmt":"2018-04-11T01:46:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artsolido.com\/?p=1446"},"modified":"2018-10-24T03:05:53","modified_gmt":"2018-10-24T03:05:53","slug":"stieglitz-and-okeeffe-their-love-and-life-in-letters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artsolido.com\/es\/2018\/04\/11\/stieglitz-and-okeeffe-their-love-and-life-in-letters\/","title":{"rendered":"Stieglitz And O’Keeffe: Their Love And Life In Letters"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/p>\n
From 1915 until 1946, some 25,000 pieces of paper were exchanged between two major 20th-century artists. Painter Georgia O’Keeffe and photographer Alfred Stieglitz wrote each other letters \u2014 sometimes two and three a day, some of them 40 pages long. The correspondence tracks their relationship from acquaintances to admirers to lovers to man and wife to exasperated \u2014 but still together \u2014 long-marrieds.<\/p>\n
The first volume of those letters has just been published. My Faraway One, edited by Sarah Greenough, features 700-plus pages of the couple’s correspondence, sent between 1915 and 1933.<\/p>\n
When Stieglitz and O’Keeffe met in 1916, he was 52 and famous \u2014 an internationally acclaimed photographer, with an avant-garde gallery in Manhattan. She, on the other hand, was 28 and unknown.<\/p>\n
“Stieglitz was the most important person in the New York art world,” explains Greenough, head of the photography department at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. “And O’Keeffe was a schoolteacher” \u2014 teaching art in Texas.<\/p>\n
The couple’s correspondence \u2014 O’Keeffe’s in sweeping squiggles and curlicues; Stieglitz in thick, decisive slanting black lines \u2014 cascaded over the years as their relationship deepened.<\/p>\n
“I’m getting to like you so tremendously that it some times scares me,” O’Keeffe writes from Canyon, Texas, on Nov. 4, 1916. ” … Having told you so much of me \u2014 more than anyone else I know \u2014 could anything else follow but that I should want you \u2014 “<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Stieglitz becomes her guide and mentor. He exhibits her work in his gallery, and, unannounced, O’Keeffe visits him in New York. As she’s about to return to Texas, Stieglitz writes to her on June, 1, 1917: “How I wanted to photograph you \u2014 the hands \u2014 the mouth \u2014 & eyes \u2014 & the enveloped in black body \u2014 the touch of white \u2014 & the throat \u2014 but I didn’t want to break into your time \u2014 ”<\/p>\n
He’s beginning to yearn. Miserable in his first marriage, he starts to see her not as O’Keeffe the artist, but as O’Keeffe the woman. Years later, he will photograph her \u2014 with what she described as “a kind of heat.”<\/p>\n
“Stieglitz was an immensely charismatic person, amazingly egotistical and narcissistic,” Greenough says, “but he had this ability to establish a deep communion with people.”<\/p>\n
All I want is to preserve that wonderful something which so purely exists between us. \nAlfred Stieglitz, 1918<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
O’Keeffe decides to move to New York, and before she arrives, Stieglitz writes to her on May 26, 1918:<\/p>\n
“What do I want from you? \u2014 … Sometimes I feel I’m going stark mad \u2014 That I ought to say \u2014 Dearest \u2014 You are so much to me that you must not come near me \u2014 Coming may bring you darkness instead of light \u2014 And it’s in Everlasting light that you should live.”<\/p>\n
Stieglitz worries that he won’t be able to provide for her. He has no head for business. Still, eagerly, he gets a small studio cleaned and aired for her, and writes: “All I want is to preserve that wonderful something which so purely exists between us.”<\/p>\n
O’Keeffe comes to New York, and she and Stieglitz begin living together almost immediately. They marry in 1924. “They were entranced \u2014 passionately in love,” Greenough says. “And yet by the mid-’20s, difficulties start creeping into the relationship; you can see the cracks in the relationship.”<\/p>\n
O’Keefe deeply wants to have a child, and Stieglitz does not, Greenough explains. The couple lives with Stieglitz’s family, which proves difficult for O’Keeffe. They spend every summer at Lake George in New York with the Stieglitz family, “and that family very much intruded on O’Keeffe’s time to paint,” Greenough says.<\/p>\n
O’Keeffe becomes a famous artist \u2014 thanks in large part to Steiglitz’s promotion of her. She grows increasingly restless and, according to Greenough, starts making little trips. In the summer of 1929, she decides to go to New Mexico \u2014 a seminal decision that will forever change their lives.<\/p>\n
“This really isn’t like anything you ever saw \u2014 and no one who tells you about it gives any idea of it,” she writes to Stieglitz from Taos, N.M., on May 2, 1929.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
My Faraway One \nSelected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz: 1915-1933<\/h3>\n
“She is so happy,” Greenough says of O’Keeffe, who was staying with Mable Dodge Luhan, a woman who liked to surround herself with famous artists and writers. \n“Mabel’s place beats anything you can imagine about it \u2014 it is simply astonishing,” O’Keeffe writes. “… The drive up here \u2014 seventy-five miles \u2014 was wonderful \u2014 It is bedtime and I am not a bit sleepy \u2014 not even tired \u2014 I lay in the sun a long time this afternoon \u2014 the air is cold and the wind \u2014 but the sun is hot \u2014 ”<\/p>\n
O’Keeffe, now 42, is coming alive in New Mexico. She finds the subjects and colors that will place her work in every major museum. Her letters are full of adventures and sunshine. Back in New York, Stieglitz, now 65, falls apart. “I am broken,” he writes, desperate that he has lost her and will never get her back.<\/p>\n
After two months in Taos, O’Keeffe explains her time away in a letter dated July 9, 1929:<\/p>\n
There is much life in me \u2014 when it was always checked in moving toward you \u2014 I realized it would die if it could not move toward something … I chose coming away because here at least I feel good \u2014 and it makes me feel I am growing very tall and straight inside \u2014 and very still \u2014 Maybe you will not love me for it \u2014 but for me it seems to be the best thing I can do for you \u2014 I hope this letter carries no hurt to you \u2014 It is the last thing I want to do in the world. \nToday it rains \u2014<\/p>\n
“This letter to me seems to express what any modern woman feels,” Greenough says, “trying to reconcile the desires for work, their art, with a marriage.”<\/p>\n
A very modern marriage, which lasts \u2014 with changes, variations, temptations, an infidelity and, of course, letters \u2014 until Stieglitz dies in 1946. Throughout, each groped for personal and professional fulfillment \u2014 and achieved so much. The relationship, from 1915 to 1933, is traced in Volume 1 of My Faraway One: Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz.<\/p>\nLetter by Alfred Stieglitz, Nov. 4, 1916.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Excerpt: My Faraway One<\/h3>\n
Alfred Stieglitz, [New York City], [May 26, 1918]<\/p>\n
What do I want from you? \u2014<\/p>\n
\u2014 It’s hardly six \u2014 morning \u2014 Sunday \u2014 cool \u2014 clear \u2014 the window wide open \u2014 I propped up in bed \u2014 feeling rather sick at heart \u2014 yet \u2014 still dreaming \u2014 having thought all night \u2014 sleeping impossible \u2014<\/p>\n
What do I want from you?<\/p>\n
Your letter \u2014 I sent you a letter finished at the Manhattan Hotel \u2014 I went away & ordered something to eat \u2014 I re-read your letter \u2014 read it really for the first time as at 291 I was not alone \u2014 The food stood on the table & I seem not to have seen it for I was paying the bill when I realized I hadn’t touched a thing \u2014 was just staring into space. \u2014 The waiter laughed. \u2014 So did I. \u2014 I guess he must have thought me half-witted. \u2014 Sometimes I feel that I have gone completely dippy.<\/p>\n
There it stood in large blazing letters \u2014 Wherever I looked: “What do I want from her” \u2014 And there was no answer. \u2014 Do I want anything from her that she hasn’t already given me over & over again \u2014 from the first moment I saw the drawings.<\/p>\n
\u2014 All the drawings \u2014 all the letters. \u2014 Perhaps they set mad dreams agoing \u2014 Or were they merely the tangible evidence that the dream of a life was no longer a dream \u2014<\/p>\n
What do I want from you? \u2014 Nothing \u2014 nothing \u2014<\/p>\n
Perhaps I merely dare not want \u2014 No, that’s not it \u2014 I dare if I really did. \u2014<\/p>\n
I fear the youngsters in their idealism see possibilities & think you & I are of one spirit \u2014 & they love us \u2014 & they have dreams that they would like to see come true \u2014 through you \u2014 & through me.<\/p>\n
Beautiful dreams \u2014 if the world were more beautiful they would come true \u2014 But the world is relentless & cruel \u2014 people are \u2014 they must be I suppose or they could not live \u2014<\/p>\n
Dearest Child \u2014 What do I want from you \u2014 You say I seem to need you \u2014 that you need me less than I need you \u2014 That’s true in a way \u2014 Still \u2014 it’s not entirely fair to me or to you \u2014<\/p>\n
Sometimes I feel I’m going stark mad \u2014 That I ought to say \u2014 Dearest \u2014 You are so much to me that you must not come near me \u2014 Coming may bring you darkness instead of light \u2014 And it’s in Everlasting Light you should live \u2014<\/p>\n
Your living is important \u2014 that’s what I want \u2014 my living is really not important. \u2014 I am young in spirit \u2014 As a spirit of some use \u2014 Otherwise truly hopelessly unfit \u2014<\/p>\n
\u2014 Of course I’d love to see you \u2014 talk to you \u2014 be with you \u2014 hear all you have to say \u2014 & tell you all I have to say \u2014 but if I am taking you away from your own natural center \u2014 away from Leah who can do more for you than I ever can \u2014 more materially \u2014 in the way of actual care \u2014 & I know that here you will feel the cruelty of the city \u2014 will live a restless existence \u2014 primarily because I’m not entirely free \u2014 having still responsibilities \u2014 & above all because I am a poor man as far as money is concerned. \u2014<\/p>\n
I need very little \u2014 but you should have sufficient \u2014 not because you think you need it \u2014 but because I feel you should have it \u2014 I know I’m no money-getter \u2014 It nearly drives me mad to see how helpless in a way I am \u2014 & \u2014<\/p>\n
Why Great Child \u2014 You don’t know me at all \u2014 You know me as the Dreamer \u2014 as the Spirit \u2014<\/p>\n
What do I want from you \u2014 Perhaps one big kiss to put me to sleep \u2014 & give me peace forever \u2014 I want to know you strong & well \u2014 I want to know you free \u2014<\/p>\n
I know you are a woman \u2014 First \u2014 & always \u2014 I know you need a home \u2014 a child \u2014 Those take a man to give you \u2014 I am not a man \u2014 That’s my curse. \u2014<\/p>\n
I could give you a child \u2014 It would be the purest that was ever conceived but it would be drowned to death \u2014 & you with it \u2014 & I too \u2014 because I do not know how to be part of the big game \u2014<\/p>\n
My love for you is so great \u2014 as wonderfully pure \u2014 It’s not the physical self seeking your physical self \u2014 I don’t know what it is \u2014<\/p>\n
Madness I guess \u2014 Madness like 291 \u2014<\/p>\n
Great Heavens \u2014 Everything seems to hurt this morning \u2014<\/p>\n
If you should decide to come because you feel you must \u2014 for no particular reason \u2014 expecting nothing \u2014 hoping for nothing \u2014 wanting nothing \u2014 Just coming \u2014 whatever happens then will happen naturally \u2014 What it will be I have no idea \u2014<\/p>\n
\u2014 Strand I fear has not made things very clear to you \u2014 How could he \u2014 He brought you quiet \u2014 that’s why I wished him to go \u2014 But I had hoped he’d be able to give you a picture of myself \u2014 conditions \u2014 Why \u2014 Because he felt \u2014 Elizabeth felt \u2014 I felt \u2014 you wanted to come East awhile \u2014 & I felt that you should know conditions \u2014 I could not write them \u2014 I can give you no picture now \u2014 My existence seems to be one great mess in spite of its spiritual purity \u2014 & I want to drag no one into the mess. \u2014<\/p>\n
Your getting sick made matters involved \u2014 It’s the sickness which in a way drew in the youngsters \u2014 I seemed so helpless to help you \u2014 so I spoke to them about you \u2014 I thought perhaps they could be of some assistance \u2014 & they have been \u2014 but they have brought glasses to you \u2014 colored \u2014 & you don’t see directly as you did before. \u2014 Not that which existed between you & me. \u2014 Really exists now \u2014<\/p>\n
Strand was really to rid you of the glasses \u2014 Of course it’s I responsible \u2014 I can write now all this \u2014 a couple of weeks ago it would have been absurd \u2014<\/p>\n
The sun has gone \u2014 it’s clouding up \u2014<\/p>\n
I wonder what you’ll decide to do \u2014 My last letter gave you an idea of the situation here \u2014<\/p>\n
Remember if you feel you want to come \u2014 are strong enough \u2014 I’ll be very happy \u2014 But if you come because you think I want something from you \u2014 the coming will be a false beginning. \u2014<\/p>\n
Beginning of what \u2014<\/p>\n
I’m so tired \u2014 I could cry \u2014<\/p>\n
Your letter \u2014 it’s beautiful \u2014 It’s full of passion \u2014 the Woman’s Soul \u2014 Crying for Completeness \u2014 Heart Rending \u2014<\/p>\n
Like your work \u2014 heartrendingly beautiful \u2014 Can anything bring you peace on earth unless it’s home & a child \u2014 And who is there fit to give you these? Honestly \u2014 Fairly to mother & child. \u2014 As you would need \u2014<\/p>\n
These are terrible days \u2014<\/p>\n
I wonder \u2014 I hate to send this letter \u2014<\/p>\n
Somehow I feel I ought to have you here \u2014 my arm around you \u2014 like Strand \u2014 Leah \u2014 listening \u2014 or not \u2014 & I telling you all this & more \u2014 Perhaps it would bring some light to both of us \u2014 \nPerhaps I’m afraid \u2014 afraid that I am steering you for pain. \u2014<\/p>\n
\u2014 I am to go to the country \u2014 to my brother \u2014 I don’t feel a bit like it \u2014 I’d like to shut out all light & stay in bed \u2014 & not think \u2014<\/p>\n
There goes the clock \u2014<\/p>\nLetter by Georgia O’Keeffe, Nov. 12, 1916.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
I did not get a letter off to you this morning because I overslept \u2014 it was a gray day and usually the sun wakes me up \u2014 It was after nine when I waked \u2014<\/p>\n
Last night your letters put me in such a daze \u2014 I didn’t seem to have thought enough to write \u2014 I was not here when the telegrams you speak of came. I wired you as soon as we returned \u2014 that is we got in late at night and the housekeeper gave me your telegrams in the morning. I wired you immediately \u2014 asked how you were that day \u2014 You did not answer \u2014 I sent you a night letter last night \u2014<\/p>\n
I really see nothing for me to do but return to you if you are going to worry this way. I don’t want to wear you out with anything like that \u2014 I am as conscientiously careful in everything I do as can be \u2014 I have not missed writing for more than a day unless maybe that time I asked Beck to write \u2014 and then it was because I was working all day every day \u2014 and I think that even that day I wrote you a little note after she wrote \u2014 \n\u2014 If you are uneasy this way I will just not stay any longer \u2014 so you must tell me \u2014<\/p>\n
Mail in these places is not very certain \u2014 and on our trips I sent letters from any crazy little place we happened to be \u2014 Tony and Beck both laughed at me for writing so often \u2014 and we were not often still when I could write \u2014 I can’t tell you how sorry I am that you have been so distressed \u2014 It was entirely unnecessary \u2014 I assure you \u2014 If anything goes wrong \u2014 we wouldn’t be six days telling you about it \u2014 You have just worn yourself out \u2014 doing more than you could this spring \u2014 and being tired get into a state of mind that you wouldn’t if you were in better condition physically \u2014<\/p>\n
\u2014 As for other things you write of \u2014 of the past \u2014 things that have hurt me \u2014 and things that have hurt you \u2014 I have purposely not written of it or remarked on it because of the distance between us \u2014 the long times between letters \u2014 and possibly \u2014 I do not want to hurt you \u2014 I have put out my hand to you so many times of late and more often than not felt you turn away from me \u2014 In the Room you usually made me feel that you were just waiting for me to go \u2014 You feel that I am mistaken in many things \u2014 Going into it all does not lead anywhere \u2014<\/p>\n
I do not wish to blame you for anything \u2014 and I do not want you to be having any regrets \u2014 I think I understand it all better than you imagine \u2014 In a way I am very grateful to you for all of it \u2014 It makes me understand so many things about other people \u2014 and makes it very very difficult for them to touch any place in me that hurts \u2014 in either big or little things \u2014<\/p>\n
It is as tho it has given me the big balance wheel \u2014 It is as tho it has taken my heart \u2014 and at the same time left it for me in a usable form \u2014<\/p>\n
Maybe you will not like what I feel myself working into \u2014 maybe I just imagine it is different \u2014 I am not making an effort toward anything \u2014 in particular \u2014 It is nothing to grieve over \u2014 It feels right \u2014 and sane and alive to me \u2014<\/p>\n
Tony has done much for me \u2014 quiet \u2014 solid \u2014 a warm warm heart \u2014 his hurts and his loves \u2014 and his checking off my nervousness of many kinds \u2014 What I see between him and Mabel \u2014 his way of handling it \u2014<\/p>\n
You really need have no regrets about me \u2014 You see \u2014 I have not really had my way of life for many years \u2014 When I felt very close to you \u2014 that there was a home for me really within you \u2014 I could live \u2014 I will say \u2014 your way as much as it was possible for me to live another’s way \u2014<\/p>\n
But when that seemed gone \u2014 there is much life in me \u2014 when it was always checked in moving toward you \u2014 I realized it would die if it could not move toward something \u2014 Here it seems to move in every direction \u2014 There it didn’t seem to move at all \u2014 it seemed only to meet cold \u2014 cold \u2014<\/p>\n
Miss Young \u2014 the very keen Irish woman who is here looked at me across the breakfast table yesterday morning and remarked \u2014 “I never saw anything like you \u2013 You never seem to tire \u2014 You always live \u2014 How do you do it \u2014 Mrs. Strand goes up and down \u2014 She sometimes looks terrible \u2014 You get up at all hours \u2014 You go on long trips \u2014 You stay up late at night \u2014 You do all the things everybody else does and work besides \u2014 Tony looks all worn out keeping up with you at times \u2014 But you are the only one who seems able to stand it without there being any feeling of wear and tear \u2014 You seem to thrive on it always” \u2014<\/p>\n
I had to laugh \u2014<\/p>\n
\u2014 I go to sleep when I want to \u2014 Last night \u2014 everyone else playing cards \u2014 I went sound asleep on the floor \u2014 done up in a blanket at the feet of Tony’s nephew \u2013 he drumming Tony’s big drum in my ear \u2014 till they say he went to sleep too almost buried under the big drum \u2014 And Tony got up and rescued the drum and sent him to bed \u2014 I had gone numb with your letters \u2014 and all the people that came in \u2014 the Hapgoods and others \u2014 and the telegram I sent you \u2014 and wondering \u2014 should I just pack up this morning and leave \u2014 and just walk in on you \u2014 So I just got as close to the drum as I could \u2014 the Indian beat has a terrible persistent rhythm \u2014 it just carries you \u2014 so that even after I walked home across the alfalfa field \u2014 I went off again into a dead sleep \u2014 .<\/p>\n
With this morning \u2014 Dasburg was in to see me \u2014 I showed him my work \u2014 He seemed to like it very much \u2014 thought that I had put down both the thing one sees in this country and the thing it does to you \u2014 He was very nice \u2014 seemed a bit sad as he left \u2014 Maybe I flatter myself but I often feel that a kind of live life quality that my things have makes other painters sad because it is something they haven’t \u2014 and can’t get \u2014 and I just have it \u2014 I have no choice \u2014 it seems to be right in my teeth \u2014<\/p>\n
Charles Collier is here too \u2014 he is stretching canvas for me \u2014 does it as well as I can \u2014 and you know that is saying a great deal \u2014 I taught him \u2014 You will meet him. He goes to Columbia next winter \u2014<\/p>\n
\u2014 Now listen Boy \u2014 I am all right. And what is between us is all right \u2014 and I don’t want you to worry a bit about me \u2014 There was much more cause to worry about things when I was right beside you \u2014 If you will just quiet down and be normal I will stay \u2014 If you can’t \u2014 I want you to tell me \u2014 But if you can \u2014 I want to stay here longer \u2014 But not at too great a price from you \u2014 So you must tell me \u2014<\/p>\n
I assure you \u2014 there is nothing to worry about \u2014 The things I do may seem crazy to you \u2014 I thought of not telling you \u2014 only it seemed too foolish not to \u2014<\/p>\n
Do not worry about anything \u2014 We will work out something together \u2014 I feel very strong \u2014 Just try to give your little body a chance \u2014 You see I know that if I had not come away you would be in just as much of a stew over something I would be doing there \u2013 everything about me would have irritated you \u2014 Every summer you get ready to leave Lake George because of something I am and do that you can’t stand \u2014<\/p>\n
Strand is with you today \u2014 Beck has a telegram from him \u2014 I wonder if he will quiet you a little \u2014 \nYou see \u2014 I feel \u2014 if I hadn’t come away I would have irritated you \u2014 being away you worry \u2014 There seems no chance for me to come out right \u2014<\/p>\n
And I chose coming away because here at least I feel good \u2014 and it makes me feel I am growing very tall and straight inside \u2014 and very still \u2014 Maybe you will not love me for it \u2014 but for me it seems to be the best thing I can do for you \u2014 I hope this letter carries no hurt to you \u2014 It is the last thing I want to do in the world \u2014<\/p>\n
Today it rains \u2014<\/p>\n
Please leave your regrets \u2014 and all your sadness \u2014 and misery \u2014 If I had hugged all mine to my heart as you are doing I could not walk out the door and let the sun shine into me as it has \u2014 and I could not feel the stars touch the center of me as they do out there on the hills at night \u2014 or the silver of the sagebrush way off into the distance as well as nearby \u2014 seem to touch my lips and my cheek as it does \u2014<\/p>\n
\u2014 A kiss Little Boy \u2014<\/p>\n
I have not wanted to be anything but kind to you \u2014 but there is nothing to be kind to you if I cannot be me \u2014 And me is something that reaches very far out into the world and all around \u2014 and kisses you \u2014 a very warm \u2014 cool \u2014 loving \u2014 kiss \u2014<\/p>\nGeorgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz, Yale Collection of American Literature<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Excerpted from My Faraway One: Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz, Volume I, 1915-1933, edited and annotated by Sarah Greenough. Excerpted by permission of Yale University Press.<\/p>\n
![\"okeeffe3\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/artsolido.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/alfred-stieglitz-and-georgia-okeeffe.jpg?resize=668%2C878&ssl=1\")
<\/p>\n![\"My](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/artsolido.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/my-faraway-one.jpg?resize=377%2C499&ssl=1\")
<\/p>\n![\"as1\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/artsolido.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/letter-by-alfred-stieglitz-nov-4-1916.jpg?resize=300%2C390&ssl=1\")
![\"gok1\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/artsolido.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/letter-by-georgia-okeeffe-nov-12-1916.jpg?resize=300%2C396&ssl=1\")
![\"Georgia](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/artsolido.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/georgia-okeeffe-and-alfred-stieglitz-yale-collection-of-american-literature.jpg?resize=661%2C700&ssl=1\")