Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1996) is said to be the most photographed American artists of all time, having sat for Alfred Stieglitz, Ansel Adams, Philippe Halsman, Yousuf Karsh, Todd Webb, Cecil Beaton, Bruce Weber, Annie Leibovitz, and others. A feminist before the term took on its current meaning, she created a persona based on her signature style in dress, using the photo sittings to craft a self-image that would endure. Above: Screenshot from Google search: "O'Keeffe portrait"

In March, Georgia O'Keeffe: Living Modern offers a new look at the iconic artist's powerful ownership of her identity as an artist and a woman. This major exhibition, at the Brooklyn Museum, examines the modernist persona that Georgia O'Keeffe crafted for herself through her art, her dress, and her progressive, independent lifestyle. It will mark the first time O'Keeffe's understated yet remarkable wardrobe will be presented in dialogue with key paintings, photographs, jewelry, accessories, and ephemera.

Opening on March 3, Georgia O'Keeffe: Living Modern represents a homecoming of sorts, as the artist had her first solo museum exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, in 1927. On view through July 23, 2017, the exhibition is part of A Year of Yes: Reimagining Feminism at the Brooklyn Museum, a yearlong project celebrating a decade of feminist thinking at the Brooklyn Museum. 

Georgia O'Keeffe: Living Modern opens with an introduction that demonstrates how O'Keeffe began to craft her signature clothing style as a high school student, in Wisconsin, dispensing with the bows and frills worn by young women at the time. The first section of the exhibition is devoted to New York in the 1920s and '30s, when she lived with Alfred Stieglitz and made many of her own clothes. It also examines Stieglitz's multi-year, serial portrait project, which contributed to her understanding of photography's power to shape her public image. 

Her years in New Mexico comprise the second section, in which the desert landscape-surrounded by color in the yellows, pinks, and reds of rocks and cliffs, and the blue sky-influenced her painting and dress palette. A small third section explores the influence and importance of Asian aesthetics in her personal style. The final section displays images made after Steiglitz's era by photographers who came to visit her in the Southwest.

Georgia O'Keeffe: Living Modern opens March 3 at the Brooklyn Museum. 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NY Info Following the Brooklyn Museum, the exhibition will go to the Reynolda House Museum of American Art, August 25-November 19, 2017, and to the Peabody Essex Museum, December 16, 2017-April 1, 2018.