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Georgia O'Keeffe—Hands and Thimble

A work made of palladium print.
CC0 Public Domain Designation

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  • A work made of palladium print.

Date:

1919

Artist:

Alfred Stieglitz
American, 1864–1946

About this artwork

Alfred Stieglitz campaigned throughout the first half of the twentieth century to legitimize photography and modern art. He founded an exhibiting organization, the Photo-Secession, then the periodical Camera Work, and finally a series of galleries. The most influential of these, the gallery known simply as 291, operating from 1908 until 1917, introduced the work of such leaders of the European avant-garde as Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso. Georgia O’Keeffe, who became Stieglitz’s wife in 1924, was among the progressive American artists whose work he also exhibited at 291. In a search for objective truth and pure form, the innovative photographer took some five hundred photographs of O’Keeffe between 1917 and 1937. The essence of O’Keeffe, he felt, was not confined to her head and face alone; equally expressive were her torso, feet, and especially her hands, as seen here. What resulted is a “composite portrait” of the painter, in which each photograph, revealing her intrinsic nature at a particular moment, can stand alone as an independently expressive form. When these serial images are viewed as a whole, they portray the essence of O’Keeffe’s many different “selves.”

For more on the Alfred Stieglitz collection at the Art Institute, along with in-depth object information, please visit the website: The Alfred Stieglitz Collection.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Photography and Media

Artist

Alfred Stieglitz

Title

Georgia O'Keeffe—Hands and Thimble

Place

United States (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

Made 1919

Medium

Palladium print

Inscriptions

Unmarked recto; inscribed verso, lower right, in graphite: "Ch / OK 3 B"

Dimensions

Image: 24.4 × 19.4 cm (9 5/8 × 7 11/16 in.); Paper: 25.1 × 20.3 cm (9 15/16 × 8 in.)

Credit Line

Alfred Stieglitz Collection

Reference Number

1949.745

IIIF Manifest  The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.

https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/66434/manifest.json

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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