Alfred StieglitzAmerican, 1864–1946Georgia O'Keeffe
Can I see it?
Not on view at present
Where is “Georgia O'Keeffe” now? Collection: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago. Not on view at present. Checked September 29, 2026.
Chicago, United States
It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.
- Checked
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the work
When Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O’Keeffe met, in 1915, he was a celebrated photographer who promoted modern art through his publications and galleries and she, 23 years his junior, was just beginning to gain recognition as a painter. A few years later they entered into a passionate affair, and they eventually married in 1924. Stieglitz felt revitalized by the relationship, and in a growing fascination with seriality he produced over 300 photographs of O’Keeffe to form a kind of composite portrait: in front of her paintings, in isolated fragments, and in the intimate poses of a paramour, as seen here. In 1921 Stieglitz exhibited a print of this image at the Anderson Galleries in New York, in a one-person show that included some 40 portraits of O’Keeffe. Years later, when O’Keeffe looked back at the pictures, she remarked, “It is as if in my one life I have lived many lives.”
Read on
For more on the Alfred Stieglitz collection at the Art Institute, along with in-depth object information, please visit the website: The Alfred Stieglitz Collection.
Art Institute of ChicagoCC BY 4.0
Details
- Accession number
- 1949.745A
In the catalog
Sources
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Image: Art Institute of Chicago — CC0
In the life of Alfred Stieglitz
The whole lifeJanuary – May 1916
Meets Georgia O'Keeffe
In January 1916 the suffragist Anita Pollitzer showed Stieglitz a set of charcoal drawings by Georgia O'Keeffe, and he decided to exhibit them at 291 without meeting her or asking her permission. In late May O'Keeffe heard of it from a friend and came to the gallery to chastise him, which is how they met; by the summer of 1917 they were writing each other their most private thoughts.
1917
Duchamp's “Fountain” photographed at 291
Marcel Duchamp's readymade Fountain, a urinal signed “R. Mutt” that had been rejected by the Society of Independent Artists exhibition, was displayed and photographed at Stieglitz's gallery-studio 291. The photograph was published in The Blind Man; the original soon disappeared, and it was from this photograph that the Fountain was later reconstructed.
1917
The end of the 291 gallery and of Camera Work
The year 1917 saw the end both of Stieglitz's direction of the 291 gallery, which he had run since 1905, and of Camera Work, which had produced 50 issues in 14 years. He later ran several more galleries.
June 1918
O'Keeffe comes to New York; he leaves his family
In early June 1918 O'Keeffe moved to New York from Texas after Stieglitz promised her a quiet studio. Within a month his wife Emmy came home during one of the first nude photography sessions in the family apartment and told him to stop seeing O'Keeffe or get out; Stieglitz left and immediately found a place in the city where he and O'Keeffe could live together.
