Georgia O'Keeffe 1932

Here, Alfred Stieglitz captures Georgia O’Keeffe sometime in the early part of the 20th Century with a camera. Look at the way she’s framed by the car window, a portal to somewhere else, or maybe just a pause in transit. There’s a back-and-forth, a sort of tension between the textures of her face and the hard gleam of the machine. It’s a quiet study in contrasts, between her soft, patterned headscarf and the solid, dark metal of the car. The light, or lack of it, does a lot here. The shadows carve out the space, defining the contours of her face, the set of her jaw. Each line etched by time and experience. There’s a palpable sense of her presence, her gaze intense and unwavering, even as she holds a cigarette loosely between her fingers. She's looking right at you, or rather, right through you. Stieglitz, ever the provocateur, challenges us to see beyond the surface. It reminds me a little of Edward Hopper, in its starkness, in its quiet defiance. The ambiguity in both artists work becomes an open space to explore.