Georgia O’Keeffe and Ansel Adams: Natural Affinities

This was a fabulous exhibit!
You would see a painting from O’Keefe (lots of southwestern style landscapes and flowers), followed by the portrait done by Adams. Most of the exhibit was focused on their work done in New Mexico and a few great shots of landscapes in Yosemite.
We did the audio tour, so you heard the story along with each painting and photograph.

Of course I loved this given that it was focused on the work both O’Keefe and Adams did in New Mexico. The juxtaposition was very interesting, especially their different relationships to color and abstraction. I loved the photos/​paintings that were of near the same image — St. Francis Church at Rancho de Taos, the dead tree stumps, and some of the landscapes. We enjoyed the audio tour as well.

Let’s play a word association game.
I say, «Ansel Adams.» You say… Yosemite!
I say, «Georgia O’Keefe.» You say… Vaginas… er, I mean… uh…FLOWERS! Yeeeeeah… flowers… She painted flowers, right…
Admittedly, I would have put Ansel Adams and Georgia O’Keefe on my list of «Overrated American Artists» until seeing this exhibit. I would have boiled down their collective works into «Yosemite» and «Flowers» *coughcoughvaginascoughcough*. But I was intrigued by the MOMA’s pairing of the two, so I decided to give old Georgia and Ansel second chances.
Turns out O’Keefe’s paintings of desert landscapes are far more interesting than her irises. And I assure you, my attraction to Adams’ series of photos where he makes pond scum look like stained glass was in no way influenced by the 2 glasses of Preview Reception wine I had previously consumed… I could look at that series for hours, sans-​vino.
The MOMA did a great job curating the exhibit in such a way where each artist illuminates the other, looking at similar subject matter in different lights.
Ansel, Georgia, sorry to have written you off before I got a good look at you. Turns out you aren’t just Yosemite and vaginas… flowers… I said FLOWERS… after all.