Fishhook From Hawaii - No. I 1939

Georgia O’Keeffe’s ‘Fishhook From Hawaii - No. I’ is a small oil painting, and you can just see the brushstrokes that built up this image, layer by layer, almost like glazing. Imagine O’Keeffe there, in the bright light of Hawaii, contemplating this strange little object. I love the way she's made the fishing hook into something like a bizarre flower or strange, alien life form. There’s something almost perverse in the way she painted something designed to kill and has made it appear so elegant. Her hook dangles on the canvas, suspended in pale blue like a symbol from a dream. The way she’s painted that loop, it reminds me of a lens—a way of seeing the world. And isn’t that what she was always after? She was part of a generation of painters testing ways to see, using paint as a kind of vision. And now we get to look at her painting, joining a conversation that goes way back and hopefully keeps going forward.