Georgia O’Keeffe and Henry Moore @ MFA Boston - A Major Exhibition

Georgia O’Keeffe and Henry Moore

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

October 13, 2024 - January 20, 2025

Georgia O'Keeffe 

Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. 3, 1930 

Oil on canvas 

National Gallery of Art, Washington, 

Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 

Bequest of Georgia O'Keeffe, 1987.58.2. 

© Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington

Henry Moore 

Reclining Figure, 1959–64 

Elmwood 

©  The Henry Moore Foundation: 

Gift of Irina Moore 

Photo: Jonty Wilde

American painter Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986) and British sculptor Henry Moore (1898–1986) are among the most distinctive artists of the 20th century. They have long been admired for their extraordinary distillations of natural forms into abstraction—O’Keeffe’s iconic paintings of flowers and Moore’s monumental public sculpture. The major exhibition Georgia O’Keeffe and Henry Moore is the first to bring these two artists together, using compelling visual juxtapositions to explore their common ways of seeing. Each artist experimented with unusual perspectives, shifts in scale, and layered compositions to produce works that were informed by their surroundings—Georgia O’Keeffe in New Mexico and Henry Moore in Hertfordshire, England.

Featuring over 150 works—including about 60 works by Georgia O’Keeffe and 90 by Henry Moore—the exhibition includes paintings, sculptures, and works on paper, as well as faithful recreations of each of the artists’ studios containing their tools and found objects. Organized by the San Diego Museum of Art, Georgia O’Keeffe and Henry Moore is an unprecedented collaboration with the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum and the Henry Moore Foundation.

“Looking at O’Keeffe and Moore together, we can see how both artists were inspired by and also made use of natural forms. O’Keeffe hoped that her paintings would make people pay attention to things they usually overlooked—the soft gradations of a flower petal, the patterns within a landscape, or the shapes between two objects. As O’Keeffe said herself, ‘to see takes time.’ The chance to see her work in person is not to be missed,” said Erica Hirshler, Croll Senior Curator of American Paintings.

“While many of our visitors here in Boston will know O’Keeffe’s work and reputation well, they might be less familiar with Moore, one of the most important British artists of the 20th century. The generous loans from the Henry Moore Foundation allow us to recreate the artist’s studio and will really help bring Moore alive and show how found objects played a role in the creation of his large-scale public sculpture,” said Courtney Harris, Assistant Curator of European Decorative Arts and Sculpture.

Through careful observation of their surroundings and the objects they collected, O’Keeffe and Moore reimagined natural forms—bones, stones, shells, flowers, and the land itself—into dynamic abstractions. Each played with scale, exploring the effects of making small things large. They twisted and turned pieces in space, searching for balance, looking within their complex interiors, and exploring how objects transform the spaces around them. The exhibition presents their works both individually and in dialogue, presenting unique juxtapositions such as:

O’Keeffe’s Red Tree, Yellow Sky (1952, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) and Moore’s Working Model for Standing Figure: Knife Edge (1961, The Henry Moore Foundation): Georgia O’Keeffe often envisioned how miniature forms might become monumental. In this painting she juxtaposed a small piece of wood against a distant landscape, conflating near and far, large and small. Henry Moore similarly made a small thing enormous, inspired by the breastbone of a bird to create a figurative sculpture that twists in space and encourages viewers to walk around it.

Henry Moore’s Helmet (1939–1940, The Henry Moore Foundation) and Georgia O’Keeffe’s Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. 3 (1930, National Gallery of Art, Washington): This work by Moore was the first in a series of small sculptures with hollow shells that encased unique interior forms. O’Keeffe similarly used a technique of enclosure in her painting of a deep purple flower with its complex interior and billowing leaves.

O’Keeffe’s Pelvis IV (1944, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum) and Moore’s Reclining Figure Bone (1975, The Henry Moore Foundation): O’Keeffe plays with scale, depth, and perspective by showing an entire vista through the aperture of a sun-bleached pelvic bone. Her interest in simplification and negative space is mirrored in Moore’s reduction of the human figure to a simple curve. His choice of travertine, with its porous texture and off-white color, maintains its connection to his inspiration in a weathered animal bone.

There were many other artists active in the U.S. and Europe in the mid-20th century who also looked to nature. The MFA’s presentation of Georgia O’Keeffe and Henry Moore draws upon the Museum’s modernist collection to provide a broader context. O’Keeffe and Moore’s works are put into dialogue with photographs, prints, sculpture, and paintings by artists including Edward Weston (1886–1958), Alexander Calder (1898–1976), Barbara Hepworth (1903–1975), Arthur Dove (1880–1946), Jean Arp (1886–1966), Imogen Cunningham (1883–1976), and Maria Montoya Martinez (Poveka or Water Pond Lily), (Powhogeh Owingeh [San Ildefonso Pueblo]) (1887–1980).

At the core of the exhibition are recreations of the artists’ studios, built with original contents from Georgia O’Keeffe’s Ghost Ranch studio in the hills of New Mexico and Henry Moore’s Bourne Maquette Studio in Perry Green, a small hamlet surrounded by sheep fields in Hertfordshire, England. Though both O’Keeffe and Moore remained within reach of city life, the two artists worked in rural settings, both amassing large personal collections of animal bones, stones, seashells, and other natural materials that served as key sources of inspiration. These found objects can be seen in these spaces alongside tools, unfinished works, and plaster maquettes. The studio installations illuminate the heart of O’Keeffe and Moore’s artistic practices—something rarely made visible in museum spaces—and create richer portraits of the artists by encouraging visitors to imagine how they worked and lived.

Georgia O’Keeffe Biography

Georgia O’Keeffe was born in 1887 and grew up in rural Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. She first studied art in Chicago and then, in New York, with the American Impressionist painter William Merritt Chase. But she pursued a more modern approach, inspired by Arthur Wesley Dow, whose compositional theories were rooted in Japanese art. In the 1910s, O’Keeffe, then an art teacher in West Texas, began to make nature-based abstractions, learning to love the landscapes of the southwest.

Georgia O’Keeffe came to New York in 1916. Without her knowledge, a friend had sent her drawings to the New York art dealer, photographer, and champion of modernism Alfred Stieglitz, who gave O’Keeffe her first show at his gallery 291. With Stieglitz’s support, she came back to New York in 1918. They began a romantic relationship, marrying in 1924. O’Keeffe painted flowers, skyscrapers, and, following trips to New Mexico, bones, which she shipped back in barrels to New York. But the stark beauty of the southwest always beckoned. O’Keeffe visited for long periods and began to acquire property, first at Ghost Ranch and then in Abiquiú. She moved to New Mexico permanently after Alfred Stieglitz’s death in 1946.

Georgia O’Keeffe carefully nurtured her art, her career, and her persona, earning a place in the center of the New York art world. Her work was featured in a solo exhibition at MoMA in 1946—the museum’s first show devoted to a woman artist. She gained public recognition after a 1968 cover story in Life magazine. In 1997, The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico opened to the public.

Henry Moore Biography

Henry Moore was born in 1898 in Castleford, a mining town in the northern English county of Yorkshire. He served in World War I and upon his return, enrolled at the Leeds School of Art as the first student of a new sculpture department. Through the 1920s and ’30s he exhibited at shows in London and worked in a studio in Hampstead in northern London. During the World War II, he served as an Official War Artist, making drawings of Londoners sheltering in the Underground during the Blitz.

In 1940, after his London home was damaged by German bombs, Henry Moore settled permanently at Hoglands, a cottage in Perry Green in Hertfordshire, about 35 miles north of London. He spent the next four decades creating some of the most recognizable works of public sculpture of the 20th century. He was enormously successful and well known. He was honored with a solo exhibition at MoMA in 1946, the same year as O’Keeffe’s. He was appointed to represent Britain at the Venice Biennale in 1948, and participated in the Festival of Britain in 1951.

Today, Moore’s legacy lives on through the Henry Moore Foundation at Perry Green and in Leeds. His work is also celebrated in an important suite of galleries at Tate Britain in London and in the Henry Moore Sculpture Centre at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. His sculpture can be found in public spaces across the world.

Georgia O’Keeffe and Henry Moore was organized by the San Diego Museum of Art in collaboration with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Georgia O’Keeffe and Henry Moore is on view at the MFA in the Ann and Graham Gund Gallery.

MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, BOSTON - MFA

465 Huntington Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02115

www.mfa.org

O’Keeffe et Henry Moore : Géants de l’art moderne @ Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal

O’Keeffe et Henry Moore : 

Géants de l’art moderne

Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal

10 février – 2 juin 2024

Yousuf Karsh (1908-2002), Georgia O’Keeffe, 1956 

MBAM, don d’Estrellita Karsh à la mémoire de Yousuf Karsh 

Henry Moore dans l’atelier « du haut », à Perry Green. vers 1953 

Reproduit avec l’autorisation de la Henry Moore Foundation 

Photo Roger Wood

Le Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal (MBAM) présente, en première canadienne, O’Keeffe et Henry Moore : géants de l’art moderne, une exposition d’envergure qui met pour la première fois en dialogue l’œuvre de la peintre américaine Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986) et celle du sculpteur anglais Henry Moore (1898-1986). Organisée par le San Diego Museum of Art, cette grande exposition dresse un parallèle inédit entre la vie et la production de ces deux artistes qui ont marqué le XXe siècle. A travers plus de 120 œuvres et la reconstitution de leur atelier personnel, elle retrace l’évolution de leur pratique artistique et témoigne de l’influence profonde du monde naturel sur leur travail.

Bien qu’ils aient vécu sur deux continents distincts, O’Keeffe et Moore ont partagé une vision semblable de l’art moderne. Le point commun entre ces deux artistes réside dans l’inspiration que chacun tire de la nature et dans leur association durable avec les vastes paysages ruraux environnants. Si d’autres de leurs contemporains, comme Piet Mondrian et Hans Arp, empruntent la voie des formes organiques pour atteindre l’abstraction, O’Keeffe et Moore centrent leur approche sur cet aspect fondamental.

Au cours de leurs excursions quotidiennes et de leurs voyages, les deux artistes amassent des pierres, des crânes et ossements d’animaux, des racines, des morceaux de bois, ainsi que des coquillages dont leurs ateliers regorgent. Leur vaste collection révèle des similitudes étonnantes. Pour la première fois, la reconstitution méticuleuse de leur atelier respectif permet au public d’observer comment ces objets trouvés façonnent leurs créations et leur inspirent certaines de leurs œuvres les plus importantes.

« À notre connaissance, les deux artistes ne se sont rencontrés qu’une seule fois, à l’occasion de la rétrospective Moore tenue au Museum of Modern Art en 1946. O’Keeffe a eu droit elle aussi à une rétrospective la même année. Il y a lieu de se questionner sur le message que cette grande institution a voulu lancer en mettant ces deux artistes à l’affiche à un moment où le monde se relevait du traumatisme de la guerre. A-t-elle voulu dire que leur œuvre offre quelque chose de vivifiant, de positif et de bienfaisant par le lien humaniste qu’elle entretient avec la nature ? », poursuit Anita Feldman, directrice adjointe de la conservation et de l’éducation, San Diego Museum of Art.

Georgia O’Keeffe et Henry Moore ont fait l’objet d’innombrables expositions. Pour la première fois sont réunies des œuvres des deux artistes provenant majoritairement de la Fondation Henry Moore, en Angleterre, et du Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, au Nouveau-Mexique, ainsi que d’une vingtaine de collections muséales et privées. L’exposition comprend des peintures, des œuvres sur papier et des sculptures réalisées à partir de diverses matières allant du plâtre au bronze, sans oublier le marbre, le calcaire Hoptonwood et l’albâtre de Cumberland. On y retrouve même une sculpture taillée à même une stalactite. Parmi les chefs-d’œuvre présentés, mentionnons Panier à oiseaux (1939), Figure allongée (1959-1964), « Trois morceaux no 3 : vertèbres », (1968) et Modèle de travail pour « Ovale avec pointes » (1968-1969) de Moore, et Arisème petit-prêcheur III (1930), Tête de bélier, belle-de-jour bleue (1938) et Le mont Pedernal vu depuis le ranch no 1, (1956) d’O’Keeffe. La présentation montréalaise est par ailleurs enrichie d’un « dessin de transformation » et de quatre sculptures de Moore, en plus d’un portrait d’O’Keeffe réalisé par Yousuf Karsh, tous issus de la collection du MBAM.

GEORGIA O’KEEFFE ET HENRY MOORE : 

GÉANTS DE L’ART MODERNE

PARCOURS DE L'EXPOSITION

Déployée en six sections, l’exposition propose une série de galeries thématiques qui portent un regard approfondi sur les formes naturelles qui ont marqué les créations d’O’Keeffe et de Moore. Elle débute par une présentation des premières études d’après nature des deux artistes. Elle offre un aperçu de l’influence, sur leur travail, du mouvement surréaliste qui se répand dans les années 1930. Ce mouvement se caractérise par un intérêt pour les thèmes de la transformation et de la métamorphose, ainsi que pour les juxtapositions d’objets insolites et les ruptures d’échelle.

Une section de l’exposition est consacrée à l’une des plus importantes sources d’inspiration de Georgia O’Keeffe et de Henry Moore : les ossements. Les deux artistes explorent la complexité interne des crânes et admirent la puissance et la robustesse des ossements, tout comme leurs arêtes tranchantes. Tous deux les mettent en relation avec le ciel qu’ils regardent par leurs ouvertures de manière à jouer avec la perspective et l’échelle.

Dans les années 1940, Georgia O’Keeffe et Henry Moore quittent respectivement les centres artistiques de New York et de Londres. La première s’installe dans les collines désertiques du Nouveau-Mexique, où elle vit et travaille au gré des saisons : à Ghost Ranch (en été et en automne) et à Abiquiú (en hiver et au printemps). Comme O’Keeffe, Moore travaille dans divers ateliers avant de s’installer dans le paysage rural de Perry Green, dans le Hertfordshire, après que sa résidence londonienne a été endommagée par les bombardements. Là-bas, il occupe plusieurs ateliers aménagés dans des hangars et des écuries reconvertis, au milieu de vastes pâturages.

Des meubles originaux et des répliques donnent vie aux ateliers reconstitués dans les salles de l’exposition et illustrent l’environnement dans lequel Georgia O’Keeffe et Henry Moore travaillent, entourés d’objets trouvés dans la nature. L’atelier d’O’Keeffe à Ghost Ranch intègre notamment un chevalet et des tableaux inachevés de l’artiste, ainsi que des pinceaux taillés par ses soins, des pastels de sa confection, des fiches chromatiques destinées à consigner des couleurs précises et même des outils lui servant à tendre ses toiles. L’atelier de Moore, Bourne Maquette Studio, contient pour sa part des étagères pleines d’objets trouvés et de petites sculptures directement moulées sur ces objets, notamment des maquettes en plâtre de figures humaines, des coquillages, du bois flotté, des bouts de silex ainsi que des os et cornes d’animaux amassés au cours de ses promenades dans les champs de moutons. On y trouve également quelques raretés telles qu’un crâne de rhinocéros noir et une vertèbre de girafe que l’artiste a reçus en cadeau de la part de l’éminent biologiste Julian Huxley. Cet arrangement de formes et d’objets souligne la relation intrinsèque qui unit tous les êtres vivants.

Une autre section porte sur les vastes collections de galets, de silex, de roches de rivière et de roches ferrugineuses des deux artistes qui, superposés et imbriqués, servent à réaliser bon nombre de leurs œuvres. Tous deux sont fascinés par l’immense variété des pierres aux surfaces tantôt corrodées et texturées, tantôt lisses et nuancées, allant même jusqu’à explorer des sites archéologiques pour étudier la manière dont ces pierres monumentales s’intègrent les unes aux autres. L’exposition examine par ailleurs l’évolution du travail de chaque artiste avec les formes organiques, explorant des formes internes et externes comme celles des fleurs et des coquillages. Le dialogue fécond entre les œuvres présentées jette un éclairage nouveau sur les peintures florales d’O’Keeffe qui tranche avec l’habituelle interprétation sexualisée de son œuvre, qu’elle n’a cessé de réfuter.

Le parcours se termine par la présentation d’œuvres tardives, des paysages caractérisés par des formes épurées et des échelles démesurées qui créent une monumentalité dans la simplicité. Certaines œuvres de Moore illustrent sa façon de transformer une figure en paysage métaphorique, tandis que les compositions d’O’Keeffe, constituées de bandes de couleur et de lumière, illustrent l’immobilité et le passage du temps.

Une exposition organisée par le San Diego Museum of Art, en collaboration avec le Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal.

Commissariat : Anita Feldman, directrice adjointe de la conservation, San Diego Museum of Art. Iris Amizlev, conservatrice – Projets et engagement communautaires, est responsable de la présentation montréalaise.

Publication : L’exposition est accompagnée d’un élégant ouvrage illustré, publié en anglais par Marquand Books, et adapté en français par les Éditions du Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal. Sous la direction d’Anita Feldman, il réunit des essais d’Hannah Higham, de Jennifer Laurent, de Barbara Buhler Lynes, d’Ariel Plotek et de Chris Stephens, qui offrent un éclairage nouveau sur les méthodes de travail d’O’Keeffe et de Moore, artistes dont la pratique est profondément ancrée dans leur environnement.

MUSÉE DES BEAUX-ARTS DE MONTRÉAL

1380, rue Sherbrooke Ouest, Montréal (Québec) H3G 1J5

mbam.qc.ca

Henry Moore @ Hauser & Wirth Hong Kong - Tapestries

Henry Moore. Tapestries

Hauser & Wirth Hong Kong

Through 27 November 2021

Hauser & Wirth presents rarely seen tapestries by Henry Moore. A series of five large-scale tapestries is on view, courtesy of the Henry Moore Family Collection, for the first time in Asia.

Renowned for his sculptures and drawings, Henry Moore was one of the few modern artists to extend his work into the realm of tapestry. The brilliance of the drawings is confirmed in their transition into large tapestries, seven or eight times the size of the original. These lost nothing of their power in the process, retaining all the textural qualities of the drawing, from a smudgy chalk line to a decisive pen stroke.

The presentation has been made possible due to the artist’s daughter, Mary Moore, who introduced her father to West Dean Tapestry Studio in 1976, and later helped to choose and oversee intimate watercolour drawings interpreted into life-size tapestries. The detailed textile works are the result of a true creative collaboration with highly skilled weavers led by Eva-Louise Svensson, dying wool to achieve precise colours and blending threads of a great variety of tones to adapt the artist’s original drawing media.

The works were created for the artist’s family and have not been exhibited publicly in over a decade. They were initially unveiled at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, in 1980, followed by a tour of New Zealand, America and Canada over the next five years. The theme of mother-and-child predominates many of the tapestries, following the birth of Moore’s first grandchild and continuing a larger line of enquiry into interior and exterior form which inspired the artist’s most celebrated sculptures. The sustained flow of commissions by Moore and his daughter of West Dean Tapestry Studio was a spectacular act of patronage, resulting in 23 tapestries made between 1976-86, supporting the immense craftmanship involved in the traditional weaving process.

HENRY MOORE

Henry Moore is celebrated as the most important British sculptor of the twentieth century for his particular addressing of the human form and uncompromising vision, which make him an abiding influence for contemporary artists. The human figure, enigmatically isolated or in relationship with others, is both the stimulus and the crux of all Henry Moore’s works. For him, creating his sculptures was not so much an abstract exercise in looking at the human figure, but a personal investigation and violation of the artist’s own body. Overlooked sometimes, are his fascinating drawings, often inspired by poetry and mythology. Hovering between abstraction and figuration, Henry Moore developed his own unique language of form.

Born in 1898 and originally from West Yorkshire, Henry Moore studied at both the Leeds School of Art and the Royal College of Art in the 1920s. Before World War II Henry Moore’s works were widely exhibited in his home country, in the 1940s he also started to gain international success. In 1946, Henry Moore’s radical vision on sculpture was celebrated in his first international retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 1948 Moore represented Great Britain at the 24th Venice Biennale and won the International Prize for Sculpture for his participation the same year. In 1963 the artist was awarded the British Order of Merit.

Together with his daughter Mary Moore, he established the Henry Moore Foundation in 1977, which administers his works. Since his death in 1986, the interest in his work has only continued to grow: in 2015 Moore’s works were presented at National Roman Museum in Rome and in 2017 he was the subject of a solo exhibition at the Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck, Germany. At Tate Modern, London, two rooms are dedicated to display over 30 of his works.

WEST DEAN TAPESTRY STUDIO

West Dean is one of the only professional tapestry studios in the UK, originating from a vision of Edward James to support traditional arts and craft skills, and carry on the 5,000 year old tradition of woven tapestries. The studio opened as a commercial workshop in 1976 with a commission from Mary Moore to produce a tapestry from a drawing by her father, Henry Moore. The Tapestry Studio has been working with contemporary artists and designers to translate their images into woven tapestry since 1976. Since weaving 23 tapestries for The Henry Moore Foundation, 1976 – 1987, the Studio has worked with artists John Piper, Howard Hodgkin, Eileen Agar, Matty Grunberg, Philip Sutton, Bill Jacklin and Adrian Berg.

Exhibited throughout the world, tapestries by the Studio are also on permanent view at the Henry Moore Foundation, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Surrey History Centre, Shipley Art Gallery, Gateshead and many other locations.

HAUSER & WIRTH HONG KONG

15-16/F, H Queen's, 80 Queen's Road Central, Hong Kong

www.hauserwirth.com

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