A look into the closet of Georgia O’Keeffe

Sartorial Abstraction

Article

No. 34 • June 2024

Every element in the life of Georgia O’Keeffe – from her art and objects to her love affairs and clothes – participated in a definite vision of abstraction. Immortalised by her lover, photographer Alfred Stieglitz, O’Keeffe’s distinctive modernist style continues to inspire us today and forever.

Fig 1. Unknown photographer, Georgia O’Keeffe, 1940-1960, gelatin silver print, 22.4 × 18.2 cm | Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe

text: Lidewij Edelkoort

The stark painting of her adobe home opens the door to her perception of absolute harmony based on sobriety. The modernist life of Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986) was a holistic one: her art, objects, interiors, love affairs and clothes all participated in a definite vision of abstraction. She painted flowers as intimate studies in fluidity, created houses with minimal means, chose lovers with obsessive precision and collected a wardrobe of impressive restraint.

Fig 2. Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O'Keeffe, 1927, gelatin silver print, 11.7 x 9.2 cm | Museum of Modern Art, New York

O’Keeffe’s style of clothing became legendary for its sober elegance based on faithful fashions. Once she had found the right garment, she would adopt it as one of her signature icons and repeat it in multiple variations, again and again over time. Her work wear included aprons, lab coats, men’s shirts and worker jackets – all forms designed from function – made of sturdy textiles, such as canvas and twill. O’Keeffe’s more formal wear was inspired by her travels and included Japanese kimonos, Indian jackets and an all-American favourite wrap dress, a garment she copied many times in various fluid fabrics, possibly aroused by the sensuous peignoir immortalized by her greatest lover photographer Alfred Stieglitz.

Gerogia O’Keeffe

‘I know now that most people are so closely concerned with themselves that they are not aware of their own individuality. I can see myself, and it has helped me to say what I want to say – in paint’

Fig 3. O’Keeffe in Canyon de Chelly, 1957

Her favourite colour was black, and her masculine suits followed each other in a succession of severely tailored outfits in barathea wool. Her signature western hat made her silhouette majestic.

She was conscious of her innate taste and cultivated a severe elegance, recorded in multiple photographs. Her pose, facial expression and choice of garments made these another abstracted aspect of her life. Her enduring love affair with Stieglitz taught her a powerful poise in front of the camera. His passion transported her.

Her legacy as fashion muse was established. The beautiful golden brooch given to her by her great friend Alexander Calder figures prominently in numerous pictures. It represented her initials and she used it to fasten her kimonos. When her hair was going grey, she found its colour no longer appropriate, so had it copied in silver by an artisan encountered on a trip to India. She was proud to have paid only a few dollars for it. The silver illuminated her new age. An age of inspiration.