Memories of Drawings

An exhibition of 21 exquisite photogravure prints of major drawings by Georgia O’Keeffe.

One of the most important artists in 20th-century American art, O’Keeffe balanced abstraction with figuration and tenaciously pursued her innovative style. 

Georgia O’Keeffe’s (1887 – 1986) iconic works of organic forms – including flowers and bones – surreal abstractions, rural landscapes and urban cityscapes uniquely captured the experience of her environment and broke new ground for women artists. While best known as a painter, drawing was central to O’Keeffe’s practice. She used it as a language to evoke important moments and emotions – the curve of a flower petal, a desert horizon, the wave of a hair, or the flow of a winding road. In fact, she took breaks from painting periodically throughout her career to focus only on drawing. These breaks reinvigorated her, and she’d say that these were often the best times in her life.  

The 21 drawings featured in this exhibition were made between 1915 and 1963, spanning the period when O’Keeffe established herself as a major figure in American Modernism. O’Keeffe worked with her agent and long-term friend Doris Bry (1920 – 2014) to produce this sublime collection of photogravures of the drawings, which charts key trajectories and motifs in her practice, and includes nine of her earliest charcoal abstracts. 

With no artworks by O’Keeffe held in UK public collections this exhibition is a rare chance to see her work in person outside the US. 

A Hayward Gallery Touring exhibition from Southbank Centre, London.