Georgia O'Keeffe 1918

This is a photograph of Georgia O’Keeffe, taken by Alfred Stieglitz. Look at how the tones shift and bleed into each other. It’s all about subtle gradations and soft focus. The photograph is like a drawing with light. It's got this quiet, almost melancholic feel, doesn't it? O'Keeffe’s face is partially obscured, her hands pulled up close, hiding her mouth. There's a real sense of intimacy, but also of concealment. The textures are amazing; you can almost feel the weight of the fabric, the softness of skin. It makes you wonder about the nature of identity, how much we reveal and how much we keep hidden. Stieglitz photographed O’Keeffe many times. These photographs have a very different feel to some of her later portraits by other photographers like Arnold Newman, in which she appears as a monument to herself. Here O’Keeffe is still forming, still becoming. Art’s an ongoing conversation, right? Always changing, never fixed.