Georgia : a novel of Georgia O'Keeffe

Title:

Author:

Tripp, Dawn Clifton.

Personal Author:

Tripp, Dawn Clifton.

ISBN:

9781400069538

Edition:

First edition.

Physical Description:

xiii, 318 pages ; 25 cm

Abstract:

A tale inspired by the romance between master painter Georgia O'Keeffe and photographer Alfred Stieglitz describes how a young O'Keeffe becomes the married photographer's mistress and muse as her star rises in the art world in spite of criticism about her role as the subject of Stieglitz's infamous nudes.

Personal Subject:

O'Keeffe, Georgia, 1887-1986-Fiction.

Stieglitz, Alfred, 1864-1946-Fiction.

Genre:

Biographical fiction.

Historical fiction.

Summary:

Holds:

Available:*

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Summary

NATIONAL BESTSELLER * In a dazzling work of historical fiction in the vein of Nancy Horan's Loving Frank, Dawn Tripp brings to life Georgia O'Keeffe, her love affair with photographer Alfred Stieglitz, and her quest to become an independent artist.

This is not a love story. If it were, we would have the same story. But he has his, and I have mine.

In 1916, Georgia O'Keeffe is a young, unknown art teacher when she travels to New York to meet Stieglitz, the famed photographer and art dealer, who has discovered O'Keeffe's work and exhibits it in his gallery. Their connection is instantaneous. O'Keeffe is quickly drawn into Stieglitz's sophisticated world, becoming his mistress, protégé, and muse, as their attraction deepens into an intense and tempestuous relationship and his photographs of her, both clothed and nude, create a sensation.

Yet as her own creative force develops, Georgia begins to push back against what critics and others are saying about her and her art. And soon she must make difficult choices to live a life she believes in.

A breathtaking work of the imagination, Georgia is the story of a passionate young woman, her search for love and artistic freedom, the sacrifices she will face, and the bold vision that will make her a legend.

Praise for Georgia

"Complex and original . . . Georgia conveys O'Keeffe's joys and disappointments, rendering both the woman and the artist with keenness and consideration." -- The New York Times Book Review

"As magical and provocative as O'Keeffe's lush paintings of flowers that upended the art world in the 1920s . . . Tripp inhabits Georgia's psyche so deeply that the reader can practically feel the paintbrush in hand as she creates her abstract paintings and New Mexico landscapes. . . . Evocative from the first page to the last, Tripp's Georgia is a romantic yet realistic exploration of the sacrifices one of the foremost artists of the twentieth century made for love." -- USA Today

"Sexually charged . . . insightful . . . Dawn Tripp humanizes an artist who is seen in biographies as more icon than woman. Her sensuous novel is as finely rendered as an O'Keeffe painting." -- The Denver Post

"Masterful . . . The book is a lovely portrayal of an iconic artist who is independent and multidimensional. Tripp's O'Keeffe is a woman hoping to break free of conventional definitions of art, life and gender, as well as a woman of deep passion and love." -- Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

"O'Keeffe blazes across the pages in Tripp's tour de force about this indomitable woman. . . . Tripp has hit her stride here, bringing to life one of the most remarkable artists of the twentieth century with veracity, heart, and panache." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A dazzling exploration of Georgia O'Keeffe's artistic career and the deeply human woman behind the cultural icon . . . Tripp's writing is the linguistic equivalent of O'Keeffe's art: bold, luminous, full of unusual juxtapositions." -- Shelf Awareness

"I devoured this dazzling novel about an American icon. Dawn Tripp brings Georgia O'Keeffe so fully to life on every page and, with great wisdom, examines the very nature of love, longing, femininity, and art." --J. Courtney Sullivan, New York Times bestselling author of Maine and The Engagements

Reviews (1)

Kirkus Review

A much-celebratedand misunderstoodpainter peers across decades to ask: what would I have become without the lover who first promoted my work? "This is not a love story," she promises, before Tripp (Game of Secrets, 2011, etc.) re-creates O'Keeffe's unannounced visit to Alfred Stieglitz's New York gallery, just missing a show of abstract drawings she's been sending him from Texastruly, one of the sexiest "meets" of all time. In short order, he rehangs all of the work so he can photograph her with it and within a year, has thrown over his dismal-but-financially-advantageous 25 years of marriage to nest with his young sibyl and capture every inch of her with his camera. The nudes revive his career, but what's in it for O'Keeffe, who hasn't sold a painting? Tripp soon locates the wrinkle in this storybook relationship: "You will be a legend," Stieglitz tells O'Keeffe, if she sticks with her more representational (and sexually provocative) studies of oversize flowerswhich will more easily win over critics and attract customers who tend to shy away from purely abstract work. She takes the advice and is crowned best woman painter of the modernist generation. Over time, O'Keeffe gets pulled back to the Southwestern landscape, the one place she can free her mind of her lover's unquenchable thirst for young female adoration andmost bitter to herhis refusal to father a child (he has his reasons). Artful dialogue and snappy segues whiz a reader through 30 years of professional and domestic Sturm und Drang plus cameo appearances by members of the era's avant-garde art scene (including one or two who tempt O'Keeffe to turn tables on Stieglitz). In the end, it's not fidelity she craves but space to make art as she did when she was "nobody": "This is, after all, what I learned from [Stieglitz]: to keep what I want to myself. To reveal only what I want to be seen." A year before the centennial of that first one-woman show, Tripp's portrait makes a compelling primer to O'Keeffe's early careerand, yes, more than a love story. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.