AFA 18th Anniversary

18th Anniversary 132 www.afamag.com | w ww.incollect.com Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986), Brooklyn Bridge, 1949. Oil on Masonite, 48 x 35⅛ inches. Brooklyn Museum; Bequest of Mary Childs Draper (77.11). Courtesy Brooklyn Museum. © 2017 Georgia O’Keeffe Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. When Stieglitz died in 1946, O’Keeffe made plans to move to northern New Mexico where she had been spending summers. In 1949, about to leave, she painted this farewell salute to New York, her home for thirty years. The Brooklyn Bridge was an iconic subject for her generation of modern artists, but she had never painted it before. She used the twin arches and harp-like cables of the bridge to create a valentine to the things she was leaving behind, saying goodbye to Stieglitz, their partnership, and the city where they launched their careers. The bridge is also a gateway, perhaps her metaphor for leaving the manmade city of stone and steel for the clear blue skies of New Mexico.