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Ida O’Keeffe: escaping elder sister Georgia’s shadow

In this video, we learn about the life of American artist Ida O’Keeffe (1889–1961) – the overshadowed sister of Georgia O’Keeffe, famous for her paintings of enlarged flowers and New Mexico landscapes.

The video was screened as part of the 2018 Dallas Museum of Art exhibition ‘Ida O’Keeffe: Escaping Georgia’s Shadow’, which brought to light rediscovered works by the younger O’Keeffe sibling, and revealed how she crafted an artistic identity that was distinct, in style and subject matter, from that of her celebrated sister.

In fact, she might have had a prominent artistic career of her own, if Georgia’s husband – photographer and gallerist Alfred Stieglitz – had promoted Ida’s work, too. But as a late starter, and never able to support herself by her art, Ida instead moved around a lot during the Great Depression for the short-term teaching posts that provided her main income, leaving her little time free to paint and create.

The DMA show included over 40 never-before-seen and rarely-exhibited works by Ida O’Keefe, including six of the artist’s seven lighthouse paintings. Her bold and increasingly abstract compositions, featuring “dynamic symmetry”, are quite unlike her older sister’s more celebrated paintings of buildings and landscapes.

View the original video here.

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