0:00:10 > 0:00:12The White Place.
0:00:13 > 0:00:15The artist Georgia O'Keeffe
0:00:15 > 0:00:18was filmed in New Mexico near the end of her life.
0:00:21 > 0:00:22Wouldn't you?
0:00:24 > 0:00:26Wouldn't you climb if you were here?
0:00:26 > 0:00:28I walked all along the top.
0:00:32 > 0:00:35I've worked out here in the wind when the wind blew so
0:00:35 > 0:00:38that if I got off my chair, it would blow away.
0:00:38 > 0:00:41I don't know how I kept my picture on the easel.
0:00:44 > 0:00:46Well, of course it was hot.
0:00:47 > 0:00:49And sometimes the Indians would be there.
0:00:49 > 0:00:51There's a bunch of trees down there.
0:00:51 > 0:00:53The Indians would be under the trees.
0:00:56 > 0:01:00And there wasn't any place for me to be in the shade, but under the car.
0:01:05 > 0:01:08I thought someone could tell me how to paint a landscape.
0:01:10 > 0:01:12But I never found that person.
0:01:12 > 0:01:14I had to just settle down and try.
0:01:16 > 0:01:19I thought someone could tell me how, but I found nobody could.
0:01:22 > 0:01:26They could tell you how they painted their landscape.
0:01:26 > 0:01:28But they couldn't tell me to paint mine.
0:01:33 > 0:01:37In 1929, on the brink of the Depression, Georgia O'Keeffe,
0:01:37 > 0:01:41America's first great Modernist painter, was heading west.
0:01:42 > 0:01:46Much of the work for which she is best known lay ahead.
0:01:48 > 0:01:51In the bright light of the American desert,
0:01:51 > 0:01:53she forged an independent life
0:01:53 > 0:01:57and found the solitude she needed for her stunning new art.
0:02:00 > 0:02:04Her obsessive sexual relationship with her older lover,
0:02:04 > 0:02:08the photographer Alfred Stieglitz, scandalised the public.
0:02:08 > 0:02:10It fenced her in, but fed her art.
0:02:13 > 0:02:15Her flower forms were seen as a shocking and vibrant
0:02:15 > 0:02:17expression of femininity.
0:02:19 > 0:02:23It's as if my mind creates shapes that I don't know about.
0:02:23 > 0:02:25I can't say it any other way.
0:02:27 > 0:02:29I can see shapes.
0:02:29 > 0:02:34Her work is often abstract, but always emotional and deeply human.
0:02:34 > 0:02:38It has defined the century she lived through.
0:02:38 > 0:02:40Now, 30 years after her death,
0:02:40 > 0:02:43100 years after her first show in New York,
0:02:43 > 0:02:47Tate Modern is holding a major retrospective of Georgia O'Keeffe.
0:02:49 > 0:02:52Perhaps the most inspiring woman artist ever.
0:03:06 > 0:03:09Georgia O'Keeffe was born here in 1887.
0:03:11 > 0:03:13This was pioneer country.
0:03:13 > 0:03:14The American Midwest.
0:03:16 > 0:03:17People came here from all over.
0:03:19 > 0:03:22Her family was Irish and Hungarian.
0:03:24 > 0:03:27She doesn't talk much about Wisconsin.
0:03:30 > 0:03:34It's open, rolling landscape and the soil is black.
0:03:36 > 0:03:39She grew up under a big sky.
0:03:41 > 0:03:44It was something she'd be looking for all her life.
0:03:46 > 0:03:49Mother would say, "Georgia was the boss."
0:03:51 > 0:03:54- She was the oldest of the five sisters.- Mm-hm.
0:03:54 > 0:03:58So she took advantage of her seniority, I think.
0:04:00 > 0:04:03Georgia talks about her mother always reading to her.
0:04:06 > 0:04:08And her mother had a lovely voice.
0:04:09 > 0:04:12She...
0:04:12 > 0:04:16would go off more by herself, was happier by herself.
0:04:18 > 0:04:23But she would play with this doll family under a tree, by herself,
0:04:23 > 0:04:25not with the rest of these children.
0:04:26 > 0:04:28Very happy by herself.
0:04:32 > 0:04:37I had it in my head when I was, well, I couldn't have been 12,
0:04:37 > 0:04:40that I wanted to be a painter, I was going to be a painter.
0:04:40 > 0:04:43I remember talking with a little girl and I even re-member her
0:04:43 > 0:04:45name, Lena Bucholz.
0:04:45 > 0:04:48And I said, "Lena, what are you going to do when you grow up?"
0:04:48 > 0:04:51Well, she didn't know. I said, "I'm going to be a painter."
0:04:51 > 0:04:54And I remember, as we talked, walking over to the window,
0:04:54 > 0:04:58looking out and seeing the children around the schoolyard.
0:05:02 > 0:05:06She could have been one of the children in this 19th-century painting.
0:05:06 > 0:05:09It was a tradition she was going to blow out of the water.
0:05:22 > 0:05:26When she was 19, Georgia got a place at art college in New York.
0:05:28 > 0:05:31Very unusual for a farm girl from Wisconsin.
0:05:34 > 0:05:37Something happened here that stuck with her for life.
0:05:39 > 0:05:43'Eugene Speicher was one of the older students at the league.
0:05:45 > 0:05:48'He often stopped me and wanted me to pose for him.
0:05:48 > 0:05:50'But I wanted to work myself.
0:05:52 > 0:05:55'"It doesn't matter what you do," he said,
0:05:55 > 0:05:58'"I'm going to be a great painter.
0:05:58 > 0:06:02'"You'll probably end up teaching painting in some girls school."'
0:06:05 > 0:06:10So, Speicher gets to paint her. And there it is.
0:06:10 > 0:06:14And of course the irony is that she goes on to have an amazing career.
0:06:14 > 0:06:18Very few people have the same knowledge of Eugene Speicher.
0:06:30 > 0:06:32'I walked up Riverside Drive
0:06:32 > 0:06:37'one clear night with three other students. We sat down.
0:06:37 > 0:06:41'I studied the outlines of the trees carefully.
0:06:41 > 0:06:47'The unevenness of the edges, the mass of the trees, dark,
0:06:47 > 0:06:50'solid, very alive.
0:06:52 > 0:06:54'I tried to paint it.
0:06:54 > 0:06:57'A student told me that my trees should be painted with
0:06:57 > 0:07:01'spots of red and blue and green, like the Impressionists.
0:07:02 > 0:07:06'I said I hadn't seen anything like that in my trees.
0:07:06 > 0:07:08'And he took my painting to show me.
0:07:08 > 0:07:13'He painted on my trees, the very part that I thought was so good.
0:07:15 > 0:07:17'I worked on it again.
0:07:17 > 0:07:21'I couldn't get it to be like the beautiful night that I had seen.
0:07:24 > 0:07:26'But I kept it for years.
0:07:26 > 0:07:31'It represented an effort towards something that had meaning to me.
0:07:31 > 0:07:33'Much more than the work at school.'
0:07:36 > 0:07:40You wouldn't think, "Oh, this is a Georgia O'Keeffe."
0:07:40 > 0:07:42This looks very much like
0:07:42 > 0:07:45the type of work that William Merritt Chase was creating
0:07:45 > 0:07:47at the beginning of the 20th century.
0:07:50 > 0:07:55This is a still life that he had set up in the class for the students.
0:07:56 > 0:07:59- And this is one of Chase's pictures? - Absolutely.
0:08:00 > 0:08:03She's been influenced by Chase, really.
0:08:03 > 0:08:06Yeah, she's highly influenced by what Chase is doing.
0:08:06 > 0:08:07As you are when you're a student,
0:08:07 > 0:08:12you're learning skills of painting, different methods of painting.
0:08:12 > 0:08:16Yeah, she's looking to Chase as a model for how to paint.
0:08:21 > 0:08:24'Who wants to spend their life painting rabbits and copper bowls?'
0:08:28 > 0:08:33She won a prize for her rabbit, a visit to Lake George,
0:08:33 > 0:08:37200 miles north of New York City, to an artist's retreat there.
0:08:39 > 0:08:42'I went to a summer school for scholarship students.
0:08:44 > 0:08:46'We had a sailboat with a red sail.
0:08:46 > 0:08:51'The daisies were blooming, the mountains were blue beyond the lake.
0:08:53 > 0:08:57'But it just didn't seem to be anything I wanted to paint.
0:09:03 > 0:09:07'One night, I stood a moment, looking out across the marshes.
0:09:07 > 0:09:11'Then the woods with a few birch trees shining white on beyond.
0:09:13 > 0:09:15'It all looked just like I felt.
0:09:15 > 0:09:18'Wet and gloomy, very gloomy.
0:09:21 > 0:09:23'So I painted it.
0:09:25 > 0:09:29'My memory of it is that it was my best painting that summer.
0:09:29 > 0:09:31'It was something I had to say.'
0:09:34 > 0:09:37I was taught to paint like other people, and I knew that I'd
0:09:37 > 0:09:41never paint as well as the person that I was taught to paint like.
0:09:41 > 0:09:44There was no reason why I should attempt to do it any better.
0:09:44 > 0:09:47I hadn't been taught any way of my own.
0:09:50 > 0:09:54Discouraged, she worked as a commercial illustrator for a while,
0:09:54 > 0:09:56and even resolved to give up painting.
0:10:00 > 0:10:02But ironically, it was the teaching
0:10:02 > 0:10:06to which Speicher thought she was doomed that was to save her.
0:10:10 > 0:10:13I was offered this job in Texas, and I knew no more about
0:10:13 > 0:10:17teaching in a public school than I do about going to the moon.
0:10:17 > 0:10:19'The drawing work will be
0:10:19 > 0:10:22'under the supervision of Miss Georgia O'Keeffe,
0:10:22 > 0:10:25'who has the highest degree known to her profession.
0:10:25 > 0:10:26'The children in Amarillo
0:10:26 > 0:10:29'will have the best talent that can be secured.'
0:10:37 > 0:10:40It was land like the ocean, all the way round.
0:10:45 > 0:10:48Hardly anybody liked it, but I loved it.
0:10:48 > 0:10:51The wind blew too hard and the dust flew.
0:10:51 > 0:10:54We had heavy dust storms and I've come in many times when I
0:10:54 > 0:10:58wouldn't have known myself, except I could tell the shape of my clothes.
0:10:58 > 0:11:00I'd be the colour of the road.
0:11:02 > 0:11:06One of her students remembered how oddly she dressed for the time.
0:11:06 > 0:11:10"She dressed like a man, suits and Oxfords that were square toed
0:11:10 > 0:11:13"and a man's type felt hat."
0:11:13 > 0:11:16We would drive away from the town at night.
0:11:16 > 0:11:18You could drive right out into space,
0:11:18 > 0:11:21you didn't have to drive on the road.
0:11:21 > 0:11:24And when the sunset was gone, you turned around and went back,
0:11:24 > 0:11:27you were lighted back by the light of the town.
0:11:29 > 0:11:31And sometimes the town would be out of sight.
0:11:31 > 0:11:34And then you'd see it again. It was that level.
0:11:41 > 0:11:44As we learn from her many wonderfully frank letters,
0:11:44 > 0:11:48she was fired up by the open landscape.
0:11:48 > 0:11:51And by falling in love.
0:11:51 > 0:11:54With a young man called Arthur.
0:11:54 > 0:11:56She made the first move.
0:11:57 > 0:12:01'Games don't interest me like they do most women.
0:12:01 > 0:12:03'I want to write to you, so I will.'
0:12:05 > 0:12:09Boldly, they go on a four-day hiking trip together.
0:12:09 > 0:12:12She writes to her friend, Anita Pollitzer.
0:12:12 > 0:12:16"I feel stunned, I don't seem to be able to collect my wits.
0:12:16 > 0:12:20"The world looks all new to me."
0:12:20 > 0:12:23Now she knew what she wanted to say.
0:12:23 > 0:12:27I'd put up a lot of pictures that I'd done during the year.
0:12:27 > 0:12:30I could say, "Well, I painted that to please so and so,
0:12:30 > 0:12:32"and I painted that to please so and so."
0:12:32 > 0:12:35Go around the room, there wasn't anything to please myself.
0:12:35 > 0:12:37And I thought that was pretty dull.
0:12:37 > 0:12:40So I put it all away and started over again.
0:12:40 > 0:12:43And I decided I was going to begin to make drawings.
0:12:43 > 0:12:44I thought, "Well,
0:12:44 > 0:12:48"I have a few things in my head that I never thought of putting down.
0:12:49 > 0:12:51"That nobody else taught me."
0:12:51 > 0:12:53And I was going to begin with charcoal,
0:12:53 > 0:12:58and I wasn't going to use any colour until I couldn't do what I wanted
0:12:58 > 0:13:01to do with charcoal or black paint.
0:13:01 > 0:13:03And went on from there.
0:13:03 > 0:13:05To Anita, she writes...
0:13:05 > 0:13:09"Did you ever have something to say and feel as if the whole side
0:13:09 > 0:13:13"of the wall wouldn't be big enough to say it on, and then sit down
0:13:13 > 0:13:16"on the floor and try to get it onto a sheet of charcoal paper?
0:13:16 > 0:13:19"I've been crawling around on the floor
0:13:19 > 0:13:22"until I have cramps in my feet."
0:13:22 > 0:13:26- To Arthur, she writes...- "I have said something to you in charcoal."
0:13:28 > 0:13:33She starts doing the work that reveals Georgia O'Keeffe,
0:13:33 > 0:13:36one of the greatest artists we have.
0:13:36 > 0:13:41And she does abstractions that draw on her own emotional life,
0:13:41 > 0:13:44they draw on the natural world.
0:13:44 > 0:13:48So she does these beautiful biomorphic forms.
0:13:48 > 0:13:52Unfurling ferns, fronds...
0:13:55 > 0:13:57..rushing waters, rock shapes.
0:13:59 > 0:14:01But she makes them abstract.
0:14:03 > 0:14:05She is saying, "This is not the world you know.
0:14:05 > 0:14:08"But this is the world you feel you know."
0:14:09 > 0:14:13Amazingly, these first drawings got picked up and promoted by the
0:14:13 > 0:14:19greatest modern art impresario of the age. This is how it happened.
0:14:19 > 0:14:23She did these ravishingly beautiful,
0:14:23 > 0:14:26completely radical and unique pictures,
0:14:26 > 0:14:30and rolled them up and stuffed them into a mailing tube
0:14:30 > 0:14:33and put a two cents stamp on them and sent them to Anita.
0:14:33 > 0:14:34THEY LAUGH
0:14:42 > 0:14:48Anita got the pictures and without getting permission from Georgia,
0:14:48 > 0:14:51she took the drawings to Stieglitz.
0:14:51 > 0:14:55Alfred Stieglitz, who is a great art impresario,
0:14:55 > 0:14:58a great devotee of art.
0:14:58 > 0:15:00He was a great photographer himself.
0:15:02 > 0:15:06And he also had the appalling temerity to claim that
0:15:06 > 0:15:08photography itself was an art form.
0:15:10 > 0:15:13When Georgia was studying at the Art Students League,
0:15:13 > 0:15:16she and her student friends went to see Stieglitz's gallery.
0:15:16 > 0:15:18They were seeing the cutting edge,
0:15:18 > 0:15:22they were seeing the avant-garde, the completely bohemian aspect
0:15:22 > 0:15:25of the new art that was being brought in from Europe.
0:15:27 > 0:15:31At that time, Stieglitz had the only modern things
0:15:31 > 0:15:33that you could go to see.
0:15:33 > 0:15:34He had the first Picasso's.
0:15:34 > 0:15:37That was what seemed to be the most important place.
0:15:37 > 0:15:41All the instructors at the league told us we should go and see
0:15:41 > 0:15:45the Rodin drawings because it MIGHT be important.
0:15:45 > 0:15:47I thought they were just a lot of scribbles.
0:15:47 > 0:15:51It wasn't anything like what I'd been taught to draw.
0:15:53 > 0:15:58- This is September 1915. - June, September...
0:15:58 > 0:16:03'But now she was saying to Anita, "I'd rather have Stieglitz like something,
0:16:03 > 0:16:06'"anything I had done, than anyone else I know of."'
0:16:06 > 0:16:09And Anita writes, "I had to do it, I'm glad I did it,
0:16:09 > 0:16:13"it was the only thing to do. Well, I had to do it, that's all.
0:16:13 > 0:16:17"I walked up to 291..." That's Stieglitz's gallery.
0:16:17 > 0:16:21"..and I said, 'Mr Stieglitz, would you like to see
0:16:21 > 0:16:24"'what I have under my arm?'
0:16:24 > 0:16:28"He said, 'I would. Come in the backroom.'
0:16:28 > 0:16:32"I went in with your feelings and your emotions tied up
0:16:32 > 0:16:35"and showed them to a giant of a man.
0:16:35 > 0:16:39"It was a long while before his lips opened.
0:16:39 > 0:16:42"'Finally, a woman on paper.'"
0:16:44 > 0:16:45"Finally, a woman on paper."
0:16:45 > 0:16:48HE CHUCKLES
0:16:48 > 0:16:51Stieglitz showed her charcoals at his gallery that spring,
0:16:51 > 0:16:53100 years ago.
0:16:58 > 0:17:00She writes to ask him what he thinks.
0:17:00 > 0:17:04'Mr Stieglitz, if you remember why you liked the charcoals
0:17:04 > 0:17:07'Anita Pollitzer showed you, and what they said to you,
0:17:07 > 0:17:10'I would like to know if you want to tell me.'
0:17:11 > 0:17:15'I do want to tell you they gave me much joy.
0:17:15 > 0:17:17'They were a real surprise, and above all,
0:17:17 > 0:17:20'I felt they were a genuine expression of yourself.'
0:17:22 > 0:17:25He's married and 23 years older than her,
0:17:25 > 0:17:28but they're fascinated by each other.
0:17:28 > 0:17:32'Sometimes your letters are so much yourself, such an intense
0:17:32 > 0:17:34'live sort of self,
0:17:34 > 0:17:36'that some mornings I wake with a shrinking sort of fear
0:17:36 > 0:17:40'that there will be a letter from you popped under my door.'
0:17:45 > 0:17:48'You are a very, very great woman.
0:17:48 > 0:17:52'You have given me something so overpowering that I feel as if
0:17:52 > 0:17:56'I had shot up suddenly into the skies and touched the stars.
0:17:56 > 0:17:57'And found them all women!'
0:18:01 > 0:18:05By 1916, early 1917,
0:18:05 > 0:18:08Stieglitz was writing O'Keeffe two, three,
0:18:08 > 0:18:12four times a day in letters that could easily be 20,
0:18:12 > 0:18:1630 or 40 pages long by the time he'd finish.
0:18:16 > 0:18:21These envelopes, as she said, sometimes burst open in the mail.
0:18:22 > 0:18:26They fall in love, really, through their correspondence,
0:18:26 > 0:18:29they spent very little time together during those years.
0:18:32 > 0:18:36Back in Texas, teaching, Georgia now felt ready for colour.
0:18:37 > 0:18:40'I believe it was June before I needed blue.'
0:18:54 > 0:18:57Soon, every colour exploded into her painting.
0:19:02 > 0:19:06'Tonight, I'd like to paint the world with a broom,
0:19:06 > 0:19:09'and I think I'd like great buckets of colour.
0:19:12 > 0:19:14'Lots of red, vermilion.
0:19:16 > 0:19:19'And I don't want to be careful of the floor.
0:19:19 > 0:19:21'I just want to splash.'
0:19:25 > 0:19:29This is an incredibly intense, productive time for her.
0:19:46 > 0:19:51She's reading avidly. Ibsen, Dante and the Russian artist Kandinsky.
0:19:51 > 0:19:54He thought art could be music.
0:19:54 > 0:19:57It should not copy nature,
0:19:57 > 0:20:02but use it as the springboard to express ideas and emotions.
0:20:02 > 0:20:06Kandinsky wrote, "Nowadays, we are still bound to external
0:20:06 > 0:20:10"nature and must find our means of expression in her.
0:20:10 > 0:20:11"But how far may we go
0:20:11 > 0:20:15"in altering the forms and colours of this nature?
0:20:15 > 0:20:19"We may go as far as the artist is able to carry his emotion."
0:20:25 > 0:20:28It's her radical experiments with abstraction that really appeal to
0:20:28 > 0:20:30some young artists today.
0:20:32 > 0:20:37She was one of the first people in America to embrace abstraction,
0:20:37 > 0:20:38- wasn't she?- Yeah.
0:20:38 > 0:20:41She might start with a spiral or a wave
0:20:41 > 0:20:45or a gradation of colour. And when she does it over and over
0:20:45 > 0:20:49and over again, it becomes something far away from that.
0:20:49 > 0:20:53Something that's totally transcendent.
0:20:53 > 0:20:56But I love these because this is the genesis for everything.
0:20:58 > 0:21:02It's like she's starting this quest and she's always circling around
0:21:02 > 0:21:04this thing that's kind of unnameable,
0:21:04 > 0:21:08which is the naming of emotion through drawing and painting.
0:21:12 > 0:21:16Georgia talked of that memory, or "dream thing I do".
0:21:18 > 0:21:22She starts by drawing a natural form, a landscape, say.
0:21:22 > 0:21:26Then takes the sketch indoors and abstracts from it
0:21:26 > 0:21:29until it takes on the emotional resonance that gives it power.
0:21:33 > 0:21:37There is a very clear relationship in this work
0:21:37 > 0:21:41- between human shapes and natural spaces.- Yeah.
0:21:41 > 0:21:46I think she's seeing things both in landscape and in nature that she
0:21:46 > 0:21:50sees in kind of human experience and human body parts, if you like.
0:21:51 > 0:21:54- Look at that.- Yeah.
0:21:54 > 0:21:57She's not afraid to embrace what's in her head, is she?
0:21:57 > 0:22:01She just seemed super bold, like she had nothing to lose.
0:22:01 > 0:22:05She likes these curves, these shapes we've seen earlier.
0:22:05 > 0:22:08You can see in the repetition of these forms
0:22:08 > 0:22:10a kind of language forming.
0:22:10 > 0:22:12You know, you don't learn a language in a day.
0:22:12 > 0:22:16For me, she demystified that whole kind of genius artist,
0:22:16 > 0:22:19which usually goes along with some kind of male archetype.
0:22:19 > 0:22:22You know, like a Leonardo da Vinci genius,
0:22:22 > 0:22:24it's just like a bolt of lightning.
0:22:24 > 0:22:26But for her, she lifted the veil of that.
0:22:26 > 0:22:31And you can see these small, kind of design elements, which were like...
0:22:31 > 0:22:33like words in a vocabulary,
0:22:33 > 0:22:36that built into some kind of sublime language.
0:22:39 > 0:22:41Georgia was still in love with Arthur and yearning for
0:22:41 > 0:22:45- a child with him.- It actually looks like something internally.
0:22:45 > 0:22:47That's right, it does.
0:22:47 > 0:22:50'There had never been anyone else that I would want or have
0:22:50 > 0:22:52'as the father of my child.
0:22:52 > 0:22:55'My face is very hot as I write it to you.'
0:22:57 > 0:23:00There were no letters between them for six months.
0:23:01 > 0:23:04Their affair fizzled out.
0:23:04 > 0:23:08All the while, she is telling Stieglitz everything.
0:23:08 > 0:23:11O'Keeffe is telling Stieglitz about
0:23:11 > 0:23:15her life there in Texas.
0:23:15 > 0:23:19She's talking about the students that she's spending time with.
0:23:19 > 0:23:24Her infatuation with some of the men in her life at that moment,
0:23:24 > 0:23:25some of whom were students.
0:23:30 > 0:23:34Of one boyfriend, she writes teasingly to Stieglitz...
0:23:34 > 0:23:38'He is one kind of cowboy. He has a lot of cattle.
0:23:38 > 0:23:42'Tall and thin, muscles like iron.
0:23:42 > 0:23:47'We lay out there looking up at the sky for a long time. I like him.'
0:23:48 > 0:23:53But Stieglitz, who does not have muscles of iron, has other attractions.
0:23:53 > 0:23:56He was a star in a different kind of firmament.
0:23:57 > 0:24:02In 1917, he staged her first solo show in his New York gallery.
0:24:02 > 0:24:04What a friend to have.
0:24:07 > 0:24:11I was interested in what he did, and he was interested in what I did.
0:24:11 > 0:24:12Very interested.
0:24:14 > 0:24:17You try arguing with him and see where you get.
0:24:18 > 0:24:22Their connection gave both of them a sense of power.
0:24:22 > 0:24:25She did control her own work,
0:24:25 > 0:24:28but Stieglitz, because he was the person he was,
0:24:28 > 0:24:31always felt that he had the right to tell her what to do.
0:24:36 > 0:24:40This was three years before women got the vote in America.
0:24:40 > 0:24:45Through Anita Pollitzer, Georgia joined the National Woman's Party.
0:24:45 > 0:24:48She argued for women's independence.
0:24:49 > 0:24:52But with Stieglitz, it was complicated.
0:24:56 > 0:25:00He started photographing her. He posed her in front of her work.
0:25:03 > 0:25:06When she came to live with Stieglitz in New York,
0:25:06 > 0:25:09he took the same photos but with fewer clothes on.
0:25:12 > 0:25:15'When I make a photograph, I make love.'
0:25:18 > 0:25:21It was a collaboration of sorts.
0:25:21 > 0:25:23An experiment in modernism.
0:25:23 > 0:25:26Fragmenting the body into parts.
0:25:26 > 0:25:29But it was also an imposition.
0:25:31 > 0:25:34He photographed me until I was crazy.
0:25:34 > 0:25:37And he would be photographing every day.
0:25:37 > 0:25:40And he started photographing me with glass plates,
0:25:40 > 0:25:44when you had to stay still between three and four minutes.
0:25:44 > 0:25:48And you would itch here, you would want to scratch there.
0:25:48 > 0:25:49In that three minutes,
0:25:49 > 0:25:53you could have more itchy spots on you than you could imagine.
0:25:54 > 0:25:59Though acceptable in their circles, it wasn't outside.
0:25:59 > 0:26:01The fact that they were living together
0:26:01 > 0:26:04was considered quite scandalous.
0:26:05 > 0:26:10And the fact he had left his first wife to live with O'Keeffe was
0:26:10 > 0:26:15not condoned by many people within that more proper, respectable world.
0:26:19 > 0:26:22My mother didn't like the photographs.
0:26:23 > 0:26:26In fact, in some of the books I've torn some of those out
0:26:26 > 0:26:28when the children were little.
0:26:28 > 0:26:31I thought, I'm not going to have them see...
0:26:32 > 0:26:36I'd like them to think of her as an artist and what she did, not of
0:26:36 > 0:26:41these nudes, which were evidently quite a success in New York...
0:26:41 > 0:26:47But that was Stieglitz's way of promoting her, I think.
0:26:47 > 0:26:50What did you think about all that at that time?
0:26:52 > 0:26:55You know, as a family member, you think,
0:26:55 > 0:26:59"I don't want my great aunt showing, you know, pictures like that."
0:26:59 > 0:27:01But, on the other hand,
0:27:01 > 0:27:05you can't take it out of context and I wasn't a part of that context.
0:27:05 > 0:27:09And that is something that, had she not wanted to do it,
0:27:09 > 0:27:11she wouldn't have done it but she did, so OK.
0:27:13 > 0:27:16But you could see why she was a sexualised figure.
0:27:16 > 0:27:20I mean, if this was what, 1919, that's pretty scandalous.
0:27:20 > 0:27:21Absolutely.
0:27:23 > 0:27:24And I'm afraid they do...
0:27:24 > 0:27:28You look at those and you look at the flower pictures and you can't
0:27:28 > 0:27:31pretend there isn't a connection. So this is Stieglitz.
0:27:31 > 0:27:33He's kind of imposing...
0:27:33 > 0:27:37Imposing and sharing something rather private with everyone.
0:27:37 > 0:27:39Exactly.
0:27:39 > 0:27:42- And maybe this influenced her.- Yeah.
0:27:42 > 0:27:44She could see how Stieglitz,
0:27:44 > 0:27:48by bringing his camera in close to her body,
0:27:48 > 0:27:50cropping out parts of it,
0:27:50 > 0:27:55could make a real object this abstract expressive form.
0:27:55 > 0:28:00So she begins to bring her eye in very close.
0:28:00 > 0:28:04The way she painted changed profoundly at that time.
0:28:04 > 0:28:09She abandoned the sort of loose, feathery brushstrokes that she had
0:28:09 > 0:28:12learned from William Merritt Chase.
0:28:12 > 0:28:16And, emulating the very clean and sharp lines of a photograph,
0:28:16 > 0:28:19she began to make her paintings much crisper,
0:28:19 > 0:28:22much more carefully delineated.
0:28:26 > 0:28:31So this was a flowering for her work, not just for her sexuality.
0:28:35 > 0:28:40But there was a downside. She was seen as a vamp.
0:28:40 > 0:28:44And her paintings were interpreted in the light of the photographs.
0:28:46 > 0:28:51'Her great painful and ecstatic climaxes make us, at last,
0:28:51 > 0:28:54'know something that man has always wanted to know,
0:28:54 > 0:28:58'the organs that differentiate the sex speak.
0:28:58 > 0:29:02'Women always feel, when they feel strongly, through the womb.'
0:29:04 > 0:29:08'A clear case of repressed, Freudian desires in paint.'
0:29:09 > 0:29:14'Her new paintings seem to be revelations of the very essence
0:29:14 > 0:29:15'of woman as life giver.'
0:29:17 > 0:29:21O'Keeffe was horrified by these comments and after that,
0:29:21 > 0:29:27you very much see her turning away and trying to start to control
0:29:27 > 0:29:29when and how Stieglitz depicted her.
0:29:32 > 0:29:35It led her to deny her work as sexual at all.
0:29:35 > 0:29:38Well, they were talking about themselves,
0:29:38 > 0:29:41not about me - the people that saw them that way,
0:29:41 > 0:29:44they were talking about their own self, not about me.
0:29:49 > 0:29:53But the vexed question of sexuality in her work rose again in the 1970s.
0:29:53 > 0:29:57The American artist, Judy Chicago, put Georgia O'Keeffe
0:29:57 > 0:30:02at the head of the table for her monumental Dinner Party.
0:30:03 > 0:30:07It's a symbolic history of women in Western civilisation.
0:30:08 > 0:30:12I didn't really care that O'Keeffe
0:30:12 > 0:30:17did not openly identify as a feminist,
0:30:17 > 0:30:22because for me her work spoke to me from a female-centred point of view,
0:30:22 > 0:30:24and that was what was important to me.
0:30:26 > 0:30:29But, I also knew that O'Keeffe
0:30:29 > 0:30:33had been a lifelong member of the National Woman's Party.
0:30:33 > 0:30:34That Anita Pollitzer,
0:30:34 > 0:30:39the woman who brought her work to Stieglitz's attention,
0:30:39 > 0:30:44was an ardent suffragette. So there was obviously a back story
0:30:44 > 0:30:47in terms of her own personal identification.
0:30:52 > 0:30:55But women that don't want to be labelled, they don't want to be
0:30:55 > 0:30:57patronised in that way.
0:30:57 > 0:31:02I guess she felt that it would not be to her advantage
0:31:02 > 0:31:04to be overly identified as a woman artist,
0:31:04 > 0:31:06because of the stupid critics.
0:31:08 > 0:31:11But again, O'Keeffe's prices,
0:31:11 > 0:31:16which far outstrip those of most other women artists,
0:31:16 > 0:31:22are still way less then male artists, and so whether O'Keeffe
0:31:22 > 0:31:26wanted to be identified as a woman artist,
0:31:26 > 0:31:31the fact that she was a woman artist shaped both the resistance to
0:31:31 > 0:31:36her work, the lack of comprehension of female-centred imagery
0:31:36 > 0:31:38and affects her market value.
0:31:40 > 0:31:46The critic Lucy Lippard used to say art has no gender, but artists do,
0:31:46 > 0:31:50and who we are as people shapes the images we make.
0:31:58 > 0:32:00Back in New York in the '20s,
0:32:00 > 0:32:03Georgia was painting the landscape around her,
0:32:03 > 0:32:06the iconic cityscape of ultramodern New York.
0:32:09 > 0:32:12In doing so, she was consciously competing with the men.
0:32:16 > 0:32:19What are you going to paint New York for anyway? You can't do that.
0:32:19 > 0:32:21The men haven't even done very well with it.
0:32:21 > 0:32:23What do you think you're going to do?
0:32:24 > 0:32:26This is my first New York.
0:32:27 > 0:32:31I think New York is wonderful. It's like a dream.
0:32:31 > 0:32:34It always makes European cities look like villages to me.
0:32:36 > 0:32:38I think of a city going up, don't you?
0:32:39 > 0:32:43She and Stieglitz loved skyscrapers so much, they moved into this one.
0:32:45 > 0:32:47It was the tallest building in New York at the time.
0:32:51 > 0:32:55Having married the year before, they lived here for ten years,
0:32:55 > 0:32:59taking their meals in the dining room so neither had to cook.
0:33:01 > 0:33:04He would photograph - and she would paint - the view from their window.
0:33:23 > 0:33:26Georgia even put Stieglitz's name in lights
0:33:26 > 0:33:28on the brand-new Radiator Building.
0:33:33 > 0:33:36In the summer, they'd escape the city to stay at Lake George,
0:33:36 > 0:33:39where she'd gone as a student.
0:33:39 > 0:33:41Back then, she'd found it green and gloomy.
0:33:44 > 0:33:48'Sometimes I want to tear it all to pieces it seems so perfect,
0:33:48 > 0:33:49'but it is really lovely.'
0:33:53 > 0:33:56Stieglitz's family had a big house and land by the lake.
0:33:57 > 0:34:01For the first six summers that he came here with Georgia,
0:34:01 > 0:34:03Stieglitz was not yet divorced -
0:34:03 > 0:34:06not the norm in a family like his.
0:34:07 > 0:34:11There'd 20 people at the table, eating corn. Can you imagine it?
0:34:11 > 0:34:13On the cob?
0:34:15 > 0:34:17He had to have people around,
0:34:17 > 0:34:20and I find people very difficult,
0:34:20 > 0:34:23and when I couldn't take it, I went in my room and shut the door.
0:34:25 > 0:34:26She found it quite difficult,
0:34:26 > 0:34:28this relationship with the Stieglitz family.
0:34:28 > 0:34:31Quite suffocating.
0:34:31 > 0:34:34Well, I think she didn't always find them suffocating,
0:34:34 > 0:34:37but, yes, at times she needed her privacy
0:34:37 > 0:34:40so that she could focus on her art.
0:34:40 > 0:34:44So, she converted an old rustic building on the hill
0:34:44 > 0:34:48into her studio, and she called it her shanty.
0:34:51 > 0:34:53She came in the early spring,
0:34:53 > 0:34:55when the family wasn't here.
0:34:57 > 0:35:00And she enjoyed getting the house ready,
0:35:00 > 0:35:01getting the gardens ready,
0:35:01 > 0:35:04getting everything prepared for the summer.
0:35:08 > 0:35:10When she was painting the Jack in the Pulpit series,
0:35:10 > 0:35:12she talks about spring
0:35:12 > 0:35:15and how beautiful spring at Lake George was that year,
0:35:15 > 0:35:18and that she hadn't seen spring like that since she was a child.
0:35:20 > 0:35:24The family sold the big house and moved up onto the hill.
0:35:25 > 0:35:29Where that house is was the croquet lawn,
0:35:29 > 0:35:31and then next to it, up here,
0:35:31 > 0:35:33was where the farmhouse stood.
0:35:34 > 0:35:36- Oh, yeah. What a view.- Yeah.
0:35:40 > 0:35:42And lots of forestry. This is where the green,
0:35:42 > 0:35:44the infamous green, came from.
0:35:44 > 0:35:46Right, the infamous green.
0:35:52 > 0:35:57There's one thing O'Keeffe needed in her art was a connection to place.
0:35:59 > 0:36:03The mountains ring the water on the lake
0:36:03 > 0:36:05and cast a reflection on the water.
0:36:09 > 0:36:12She would take the rowboat out at dawn.
0:36:14 > 0:36:17Those provided moments of contact to nature
0:36:17 > 0:36:19and observations that she would make
0:36:19 > 0:36:22that were then transformed into a painting.
0:36:27 > 0:36:30And she painted the trees on the property.
0:36:32 > 0:36:33The oaks, the maples.
0:36:35 > 0:36:37They take on sort of bodily shapes and forms.
0:36:39 > 0:36:41I think, in a way,
0:36:41 > 0:36:45they were surrogates for representing something.
0:36:48 > 0:36:52She's beginning to feel enclosed, trapped.
0:36:54 > 0:36:58'I look around and wonder what one might paint.
0:36:58 > 0:37:03'Nothing but mountains, lake, green and Stieglitz, sick.'
0:37:06 > 0:37:09He was also embarking on a major affair.
0:37:09 > 0:37:11Theirs was an open marriage,
0:37:11 > 0:37:13but they were meant to put each other first.
0:37:15 > 0:37:19The relationship is undermined by this affair he's having.
0:37:21 > 0:37:22What about children?
0:37:22 > 0:37:25O'Keeffe very much wanted a child
0:37:25 > 0:37:28and she wrote about that to a number of people
0:37:28 > 0:37:29and it was part of her life.
0:37:31 > 0:37:36For Stieglitz, it was an absolute impossibility.
0:37:36 > 0:37:39Childbirth had destroyed his favourite sister
0:37:39 > 0:37:40and destroyed his daughter.
0:37:40 > 0:37:42He was terrified of it,
0:37:42 > 0:37:47and also he felt that O'Keeffe would not devote enough time to her work
0:37:47 > 0:37:51if she became a mother, and he felt that was his decision to make.
0:37:53 > 0:37:54And she put up with it?
0:37:54 > 0:37:55She did put up with it.
0:37:59 > 0:38:02Stieglitz said she wouldn't have time for a child.
0:38:02 > 0:38:04She couldn't paint, it would disturb her.
0:38:08 > 0:38:10It's surprising that Georgia,
0:38:10 > 0:38:14being so independent, she would take that from Stieglitz.
0:38:25 > 0:38:28She needs space, literally and emotionally.
0:38:32 > 0:38:36'If I can keep my courage and leave Stieglitz, I plan to go west.
0:38:38 > 0:38:40'It is always such a struggle for me to leave him.'
0:38:45 > 0:38:49She sets out boldly, like her pioneer grandmother before her,
0:38:49 > 0:38:54who had written proudly in her diary 75 years before, "I came west."
0:39:03 > 0:39:05'As soon as I saw it, that was my country.
0:39:08 > 0:39:11'I'd never seen anything like it before,
0:39:11 > 0:39:13'but it fitted to me exactly.'
0:39:15 > 0:39:17Like something that's in the air, it's just different.
0:39:17 > 0:39:22The sky is different, the stars are different, the wind is different.
0:39:22 > 0:39:24I shouldn't say too much about this,
0:39:24 > 0:39:26because other people may get interested
0:39:26 > 0:39:27and I don't want them interested.
0:39:35 > 0:39:39It was distant and deserted,
0:39:39 > 0:39:42but she was not the first person to arrive from the east.
0:39:47 > 0:39:52In the mountains of Taos, she stayed at this splendid folly of a house,
0:39:52 > 0:39:56where she could sunbathe naked on the roof and have a wild, free time.
0:39:58 > 0:40:00She arrived with the painter, Beck Strand.
0:40:01 > 0:40:04She wrote to Stieglitz back in New York.
0:40:04 > 0:40:09"Dearest boy, dearest boy, such days, such days.
0:40:09 > 0:40:12"Think of me with hands like dark brown gloves,
0:40:12 > 0:40:16"my nose sore on the top from sunburn.
0:40:16 > 0:40:19"I just cook in the sun as I work.
0:40:19 > 0:40:22"I can't tell you how far away I feel."
0:40:25 > 0:40:26"Mabel looks at me and says,
0:40:26 > 0:40:30'I wouldn't believe anyone could change so much in a few days.'"
0:40:31 > 0:40:36Mabel was the legendary arts patron, Mabel Dodge Luhan,
0:40:36 > 0:40:38who owned the place.
0:40:38 > 0:40:40She was married to a Native American, Tony Luhan.
0:40:43 > 0:40:45DH Lawrence painted her bathroom.
0:40:49 > 0:40:53She gave Georgia and Beck the use of a house across the field,
0:40:53 > 0:40:54with a studio attached.
0:40:57 > 0:41:02'We are to have a house, and I a grand studio besides.
0:41:05 > 0:41:10'The daylight is coming. I am going up on the roof and watch it come.
0:41:11 > 0:41:14'We do such things here without being thought crazy.
0:41:16 > 0:41:20'The sacred mountain of the Indians sits massive on the plain.
0:41:22 > 0:41:24'The world is so wide up there.'
0:41:32 > 0:41:35And here's the man who has the house and studio now.
0:41:36 > 0:41:39There are places up there that no-one has ever been. No-one.
0:41:41 > 0:41:44When these people showed up here and saw that and they said,
0:41:44 > 0:41:47"Oh, there's a river? We're in paradise."
0:41:52 > 0:41:56'I kiss you and stay here with my stove and my mountain
0:41:56 > 0:42:00'and the grey, sage desert, while my letter goes on to you.'
0:42:03 > 0:42:06Of course, Georgia wasn't Mabel's only guest.
0:42:06 > 0:42:08Mabel brought everyone.
0:42:08 > 0:42:11You have to realise that she was in
0:42:11 > 0:42:15Gertrude Stein's little cadre of characters in Paris before here,
0:42:15 > 0:42:20in the teens, when the people who were showing up at Gertrude Stein's
0:42:20 > 0:42:23were Matisse and Picasso. So, she was a part of that.
0:42:23 > 0:42:25Found this place, never left.
0:42:25 > 0:42:26But this isn't Paris, is it?
0:42:26 > 0:42:28It certainly is not.
0:42:28 > 0:42:30So, how come all of these people aggregated here?
0:42:30 > 0:42:32Why did DH Lawrence come here?
0:42:32 > 0:42:37That's Mabel, thinking, "Here's someone who is really turning things around. I want this person."
0:42:37 > 0:42:39That's who she was. She wanted you to come here.
0:42:39 > 0:42:44I'm sure you were either at the table or on the menu, you know.
0:42:44 > 0:42:46But, she would...
0:42:46 > 0:42:49She invited everyone and they showed up.
0:42:49 > 0:42:52Carl Jung stayed here in '23.
0:42:52 > 0:42:54Stravinsky in the late '30s.
0:42:54 > 0:42:55And Tennessee Williams.
0:42:55 > 0:42:58I mean, that's quite a trio.
0:42:58 > 0:43:04She was a quite solitary creature, Georgia, so what do you think she made of the whole Mabel set?
0:43:04 > 0:43:07She probably got out of here fairly quickly,
0:43:07 > 0:43:10as did Lawrence when he came here.
0:43:10 > 0:43:13Lawrence headed off to a ranch north of here, the Kiowa Ranch,
0:43:13 > 0:43:15that Mabel had given to him.
0:43:17 > 0:43:19She wrote to Stieglitz.
0:43:19 > 0:43:21'Kiowa Ranch, New Mexico.
0:43:21 > 0:43:27'I wish you could be sitting beside me under a huge, green pine tree on the side of the hill,
0:43:27 > 0:43:31'in my red coat, nothing under it,
0:43:31 > 0:43:35'waiting to continue the sunbath that was interrupted by a cloud.
0:43:37 > 0:43:41'We slept up there by the big pine tree, a stormy sky,
0:43:41 > 0:43:44'then the moon and stars.'
0:43:51 > 0:43:55She didn't have to walk far from her house to feel the power
0:43:55 > 0:43:56of the landscape and its history.
0:44:03 > 0:44:06'Things go on in me that are rather difficult to tell about.
0:44:07 > 0:44:10'A curious sort of rearranging of myself.
0:44:12 > 0:44:13'I think my painting is going to be
0:44:13 > 0:44:14quite different in colour.'
0:44:23 > 0:44:25Stieglitz is bombarding her with letters,
0:44:25 > 0:44:27fearful that she will never come back.
0:44:29 > 0:44:32'When are you planning to go to the lake?
0:44:32 > 0:44:34'Seeing you there without me seems very sad.
0:44:37 > 0:44:41'But, my urge toward what I feel here is stronger than my sadness.
0:44:42 > 0:44:46'I want so much to work here and you are there.
0:44:46 > 0:44:49'I feel myself almost pulled in two in the middle.'
0:44:54 > 0:44:55She made up her mind.
0:44:55 > 0:44:57She chose New Mexico,
0:44:57 > 0:45:02but continued to visit New York and Lake George for next 20 years.
0:45:02 > 0:45:05Listen, he didn't let me go. I just went.
0:45:08 > 0:45:12He was never convinced, but I went. I had to go.
0:45:15 > 0:45:18And Stieglitz never came to New Mexico.
0:45:20 > 0:45:23'This seems to be my world and I can't help it.
0:45:25 > 0:45:29'I feel like flying, like turning the world over again.
0:45:29 > 0:45:30'Like I used to feel.'
0:45:36 > 0:45:39Leaving Mabel and her entourage behind,
0:45:39 > 0:45:42Georgia headed further out into the desert.
0:45:59 > 0:46:03She would find a place to suit her need for solitude.
0:46:03 > 0:46:05It was called Ghost Ranch.
0:46:13 > 0:46:15The first year I was out here, because there were no flowers,
0:46:15 > 0:46:19I began picking up bones.
0:46:19 > 0:46:23Well, I wanted to take something home.
0:46:23 > 0:46:26I wanted to take something home to work on.
0:46:40 > 0:46:44When I got home with my barrel of bones to Lake George,
0:46:44 > 0:46:46that's where painted my first skulls.
0:46:47 > 0:46:50And that was at the time that the men were all talking about
0:46:50 > 0:46:55the great American novel, the great American play, the great American...
0:46:55 > 0:46:58Oh, it was the great American everything.
0:46:58 > 0:47:00And I thought they didn't know anything about America.
0:47:00 > 0:47:03A lot of them had never been across the Hudson.
0:47:03 > 0:47:08So, I thought I'll make my picture a red, white and blue.
0:47:08 > 0:47:11I'll make it an American painting
0:47:11 > 0:47:14for these people that don't go across the Hudson.
0:47:14 > 0:47:15And this was my painting.
0:47:15 > 0:47:18I put a red stripe down each side.
0:47:19 > 0:47:22Entertained me, but I don't think anyone else caught on to it
0:47:22 > 0:47:24for a quite a while.
0:47:27 > 0:47:30When I first noticed her work I thought, you know,
0:47:30 > 0:47:34"Bones? Who paints bones?"
0:47:34 > 0:47:39It was something that was very, in a way, shocking.
0:47:39 > 0:47:43This feels like it could have come straight out of,
0:47:43 > 0:47:45from Georgia O'Keeffe. Tell me about this.
0:47:45 > 0:47:48She often traded things with my husband's father.
0:47:50 > 0:47:54He would go hunting, find skulls for her and, you know,
0:47:54 > 0:47:56this was one of her models.
0:47:56 > 0:47:59But, somehow, we ended up back with it.
0:48:02 > 0:48:08When I first heard about the famous woman that came out west,
0:48:08 > 0:48:12I just thought, "It is very hard to live out here."
0:48:20 > 0:48:22Why would you want to come out here?
0:48:24 > 0:48:30I want to leave, you know, this behind and go live their life.
0:48:35 > 0:48:37We lived outdoors.
0:48:37 > 0:48:38We've moved with the animals,
0:48:38 > 0:48:40because my parents were sheepherders.
0:48:42 > 0:48:45We camped outside every night.
0:48:48 > 0:48:50It was very exotic for her to do that.
0:48:54 > 0:48:57But, I think she's always had that strong sense of independence.
0:48:59 > 0:49:04And I think that was also helping her find her place.
0:49:14 > 0:49:17I think the land that she experienced out here
0:49:17 > 0:49:18became her muse.
0:49:20 > 0:49:22It's the light.
0:49:22 > 0:49:25The high-altitude.
0:49:25 > 0:49:27The air is very thin.
0:49:27 > 0:49:29Our trees are very short.
0:49:30 > 0:49:32It's open.
0:49:33 > 0:49:38Back east, you have tall trees that hem you in and it's grey.
0:49:38 > 0:49:42It's dark all the time and you look up and there is just,
0:49:42 > 0:49:44you know, this, around you.
0:49:47 > 0:49:50Where I grew up, it was extremely quiet.
0:49:53 > 0:49:56Sometimes you could hear your own head moving.
0:49:58 > 0:50:00Things moving in your body.
0:50:02 > 0:50:06In some way, for me, that was very comforting,
0:50:06 > 0:50:10but if you've never experienced that, it's very frightening for a lot of people.
0:50:10 > 0:50:13And I think maybe Georgia liked that.
0:50:13 > 0:50:16You know, the fact that, you know, here was this solitude.
0:50:16 > 0:50:19This quietness that, you know, she could retreat into.
0:50:21 > 0:50:25And I think that was something that she really valued.
0:50:37 > 0:50:41Pedernal. It became Georgia's sacred mountain.
0:50:43 > 0:50:44It sucked her in.
0:50:44 > 0:50:46She painted it again and again,
0:50:46 > 0:50:49at all times of day and in all seasons.
0:50:51 > 0:50:53She took something from it
0:50:53 > 0:50:55and sent it out to the rest of the world.
0:51:01 > 0:51:03That's a waterfall.
0:51:03 > 0:51:05There is a black streak in there,
0:51:05 > 0:51:06that's a waterfall.
0:51:07 > 0:51:10Maybe it's a little hidden. There's a black streak right there.
0:51:10 > 0:51:14Black water comes from it and it spreads in a spray as it gets
0:51:14 > 0:51:17down a little way, then it runs on down the arroyo.
0:51:17 > 0:51:19Drawing waterfalls.
0:51:21 > 0:51:24She had a visitor from the east.
0:51:24 > 0:51:30I was 16 or 17 and my mother put me on the train in Chicago by myself.
0:51:32 > 0:51:33It was quite an adventure.
0:51:37 > 0:51:39But it was fun driving out there.
0:51:39 > 0:51:42We went through the Indian villages on the way.
0:51:48 > 0:51:50And then we got to Georgia's.
0:51:53 > 0:51:56And at night, I wanted to sleep up on the roof
0:51:56 > 0:51:59and I could use her sleeping bag.
0:52:01 > 0:52:03She doesn't let just anybody use her sleeping bag.
0:52:06 > 0:52:09Then I went up on the roof and I loved it.
0:52:10 > 0:52:12Stars were just falling out of the sky.
0:52:17 > 0:52:19One day, she said, "Well, take your clothes off.
0:52:19 > 0:52:22"It's a nice day, go out and lie in the sun."
0:52:22 > 0:52:23I couldn't do that.
0:52:25 > 0:52:29And, of course, I wore glasses and she said, "You don't need glasses.
0:52:29 > 0:52:32"You should exercise your eyes by looking up into the sun."
0:52:32 > 0:52:34I didn't like doing that, either.
0:52:38 > 0:52:40Oh, I never saw her painting,
0:52:40 > 0:52:42though I saw the pictures.
0:52:43 > 0:52:45I thought they were beautiful.
0:52:46 > 0:52:50I didn't always understand them,
0:52:50 > 0:52:51but I thought they were beautiful.
0:52:59 > 0:53:02In 1946, Alfred Stieglitz died.
0:53:04 > 0:53:08There's nothing holding me in the big city, so I came out here.
0:53:08 > 0:53:10I always knew I'd live out here.
0:53:10 > 0:53:11If I had a chance.
0:53:14 > 0:53:17Georgia would outlive Stieglitz by 40 years.
0:53:20 > 0:53:23I used to get right up in the morning and start out,
0:53:23 > 0:53:24and stay out all day.
0:53:24 > 0:53:27I'd start off around seven,
0:53:27 > 0:53:29not get back until around five.
0:53:31 > 0:53:34It was terribly hot and in the afternoon, about four o'clock,
0:53:34 > 0:53:36the bees would try to get in the car.
0:53:36 > 0:53:38So, you'd have to close the windows.
0:53:41 > 0:53:44You could take the back seat out and the windows were large enough,
0:53:44 > 0:53:46so it was very good.
0:53:46 > 0:53:48I could use a great, big canvas that way.
0:54:03 > 0:54:06One of her favourite places to paint was
0:54:06 > 0:54:09a day's drive away from Ghost Ranch.
0:54:09 > 0:54:11Often, she did camp there overnight.
0:54:13 > 0:54:16A friend went with her and took the pictures.
0:54:17 > 0:54:21Georgia didn't want any spoken word, really.
0:54:21 > 0:54:26Except when we were discussing things that had to do with
0:54:26 > 0:54:28the food department.
0:54:30 > 0:54:34There were nights when it was so cold that I would have to dig out
0:54:34 > 0:54:37a flat opening, wide enough for our two bed rolls,
0:54:37 > 0:54:39and keep a fire going in it all day
0:54:39 > 0:54:41so that we could sleep in it at night.
0:54:43 > 0:54:45She liked to be out under the stars anyway.
0:54:47 > 0:54:51In this vast area, the Black Place,
0:54:51 > 0:54:54she painted the same shape over and over.
0:54:55 > 0:54:57This cleft in the rocks,
0:54:57 > 0:54:58a sensual fold.
0:55:01 > 0:55:04There was never such a thing as a finished painting
0:55:04 > 0:55:05in Georgia's thinking.
0:55:05 > 0:55:08That's why she kept going back and back and back.
0:55:08 > 0:55:12It was always the experiment,
0:55:12 > 0:55:13the exploration,
0:55:13 > 0:55:15the going the step further.
0:55:17 > 0:55:20She came frequently to this huge, overwhelming,
0:55:20 > 0:55:25cathedral-like space and homed in on these "V" shapes.
0:55:28 > 0:55:31That is all she ever painted here in the White Place.
0:55:35 > 0:55:37O'Keeffe came to be seen as the spirit of the place.
0:55:40 > 0:55:41An American myth.
0:55:41 > 0:55:44Almost the high priestess of the desert.
0:55:46 > 0:55:49A cover story in Life helped boost that image.
0:55:51 > 0:55:53At lunch, she started talking about killing rattlesnakes
0:55:53 > 0:55:57on her walks round the countryside.
0:55:57 > 0:55:59And I said, very politely,
0:55:59 > 0:56:04"Would you mind if I took a picture of you with your rattlesnakes?"
0:56:04 > 0:56:07There she is. She'd killed a rattlesnake.
0:56:07 > 0:56:09Apparently, she'd killed dozens of them.
0:56:10 > 0:56:13I had the feeling that she would love to have the readers of
0:56:13 > 0:56:16Life Magazine know she was a killer.
0:56:16 > 0:56:17She was a killer, yes.
0:56:19 > 0:56:23I met O'Keeffe in 1977.
0:56:23 > 0:56:27She was really quite different from what I expected her to be.
0:56:28 > 0:56:31She was known to be very reclusive.
0:56:31 > 0:56:34Could be severe, could be abrupt.
0:56:34 > 0:56:38She was very, very quick-witted.
0:56:38 > 0:56:42Very funny, with a very dry sense of humour,
0:56:42 > 0:56:46which I really had not been expecting at all.
0:56:46 > 0:56:48She was almost 90 at that point,
0:56:48 > 0:56:51yet she still had just remarkable energy.
0:56:53 > 0:56:57As well as her retreat at Ghost Ranch, Georgia bought
0:56:57 > 0:57:00a less remote house in Abiquiu,
0:57:00 > 0:57:02further down the road toward the town.
0:57:03 > 0:57:07Every time she travelled to and from Ghost Ranch,
0:57:07 > 0:57:10she'd look at these beautiful gardens.
0:57:10 > 0:57:13She could not have a garden there.
0:57:16 > 0:57:18She'd talk about jumping over the walls
0:57:18 > 0:57:21and looking inside the house,
0:57:21 > 0:57:22which was a major ruin.
0:57:25 > 0:57:28My grandfather was Miss O'Keeffe's gardener.
0:57:28 > 0:57:32Our mother was housekeeper and cook when I started in 1974.
0:57:34 > 0:57:36'As I walked about the ruin,
0:57:36 > 0:57:39'I found a good-sized patio with a door on one side.
0:57:40 > 0:57:44'I bought the place because it had that door in the patio.
0:57:44 > 0:57:46'I had no peace until I bought the house.'
0:57:48 > 0:57:52This door was the inspiration for many paintings.
0:57:52 > 0:57:55I think there's about 20 paintings.
0:57:55 > 0:57:57It's extraordinary, isn't it, to think that
0:57:57 > 0:58:00this door inspired so much?
0:58:00 > 0:58:02The beautiful shadows
0:58:02 > 0:58:04throughout the seasons.
0:58:04 > 0:58:06She would, sometimes,
0:58:06 > 0:58:07just sit here quietly.
0:58:14 > 0:58:17So, looking up here at this incredible blue,
0:58:17 > 0:58:19and it's bluer than blue, isn't it?
0:58:20 > 0:58:25The adobe walls just brings out the striking blue.
0:58:29 > 0:58:33She bought this house in 1945.
0:58:33 > 0:58:35Increasingly, it became her main home.
0:58:38 > 0:58:41She was never far away from this landscape, was she?
0:58:41 > 0:58:44From the beautiful landscape, no.
0:58:44 > 0:58:49This is something, to be completely surrounded by glass, as she is.
0:58:49 > 0:58:52Looking across at the curve in the road.
0:58:52 > 0:58:54Everywhere in this house,
0:58:54 > 0:58:55she's outside.
0:58:58 > 0:59:02She did a painting titled the Winter Road.
0:59:06 > 0:59:09You have this beautiful swing of the road.
0:59:11 > 0:59:14Many people think it's calligraphy
0:59:14 > 0:59:16instead of an actual landscape.
0:59:20 > 0:59:23Pita's two brothers work here, too.
0:59:23 > 0:59:26- This is Mino.- Hi, Mino.- Hello.
0:59:26 > 0:59:30- I'm Alan.- Belarmino Lopez, and this is Margarito.
0:59:30 > 0:59:32- Margarito's the gardener.- Hi. - Nice to meet you.
0:59:32 > 0:59:37And Belarmino actually helped her with some of the later artwork.
0:59:37 > 0:59:39And how did you help her?
0:59:39 > 0:59:42She lost her central vision.
0:59:42 > 0:59:45She couldn't really see what she was doing.
0:59:45 > 0:59:47I was like her third hand.
0:59:47 > 0:59:49Was she still passionate about painting? Did you see her...?
0:59:49 > 0:59:54Yeah, she really was into doing her own things.
0:59:55 > 0:59:56She really enjoyed it.
1:00:02 > 1:00:04She loved Mino.
1:00:04 > 1:00:06She loved the way that he would work with her.
1:00:09 > 1:00:13He was real patient, and, er,
1:00:13 > 1:00:16I think that's probably why she got real close to Mino.
1:00:19 > 1:00:21- This is her studio? - This is her studio.
1:00:23 > 1:00:26She would say, "I want to do some lines."
1:00:28 > 1:00:30I'd mix the paints for her.
1:00:30 > 1:00:33The red or the green.
1:00:33 > 1:00:36Cos she would tell me, "I want the inch paintbrush,"
1:00:36 > 1:00:38or the two-inch paintbrush.
1:00:40 > 1:00:41So, we did some lines.
1:00:41 > 1:00:44Some watercolour lines that were wavy
1:00:44 > 1:00:46and some were dots.
1:00:48 > 1:00:52And she'd start doing the strokes on the blotting paper
1:00:52 > 1:00:55and if she liked it, she would keep it.
1:00:55 > 1:00:59If not, she would just put it aside and afterwards we would go out
1:00:59 > 1:01:01and burn it in the fire pit.
1:01:04 > 1:01:06I usually did the circles.
1:01:06 > 1:01:10She would just say, "Just put it there and turn the paintbrush."
1:01:11 > 1:01:13She was strong. She was a strong lady.
1:01:16 > 1:01:19It's remarkable how much these last pictures
1:01:19 > 1:01:21look like her very first work.
1:01:23 > 1:01:25She's gone back to her beginnings.
1:01:29 > 1:01:30I'd pass in front of her studio
1:01:30 > 1:01:33and I'd see her still moving her hands around.
1:01:34 > 1:01:38In the winter, when it'd snow, she'd just love sitting in front of
1:01:38 > 1:01:40her fireplace and watch the snow fall on the windows.
1:01:44 > 1:01:46Was there a point when her sight was really going?
1:01:46 > 1:01:50Yeah. Those are the times that you would have to...
1:01:50 > 1:01:54She would hold on to your arm and walk with you real close.
1:01:58 > 1:02:03Georgia O'Keeffe died at the age of 98 in 1986.
1:02:06 > 1:02:07We continued working here
1:02:07 > 1:02:09as though she was going to be here the next day.
1:02:12 > 1:02:15So, we kept the place as if she was still living here.
1:02:18 > 1:02:19We thought of her as family.
1:02:24 > 1:02:27Her great-nephew visited her near the end of her life.
1:02:29 > 1:02:31That was a great weekend.
1:02:33 > 1:02:35I remember she told me stories.
1:02:35 > 1:02:38She was a good storyteller. Nobody talks about that.
1:02:41 > 1:02:44She had lost much of her eyesight.
1:02:44 > 1:02:47We spent time together, listened to music in the sitting room.
1:02:48 > 1:02:50Talked a lot.
1:02:51 > 1:02:54We were at the door to the studio
1:02:54 > 1:02:57and the light was right on my face.
1:03:00 > 1:03:05Then she said, "I want to know,
1:03:05 > 1:03:06"how you are and how you look."
1:03:07 > 1:03:12And so that's when she put her hands over my face.
1:03:16 > 1:03:18I went down onto the highway.
1:03:19 > 1:03:23I stopped the car and I got out on the shoulder and I looked up.
1:03:23 > 1:03:25There she was, in the parking lot,
1:03:25 > 1:03:27looking out directly at where I was.
1:03:30 > 1:03:34She couldn't see me, of course,
1:03:34 > 1:03:36but she knew sort of where I should be.
1:03:38 > 1:03:39And she was right.
1:03:48 > 1:03:52The Georgia O'Keeffe show is at Tate Modern in London until October 30.