Wideness & Wonder

Rubin, Susan Goldman. (2011). Wideness & wonder: The life and art of Georgia O'Keeffe. San Francisco: Chronicle Books. Lavishly illustrated with 46 photographs or artworks by the highly original Georgia O'Keeffe, this beautifully written biography will have readers longing to know more about the woman at its center. Rubin uses 17 chapters to describe Georgia's early years, her educational background, and her struggles as an artist. Although she doesn't spend a lot of time examining the life of the artist as a young girl, she chooses to focus on her groundbreaking artwork and her strong connections to the Arizona desert. The author also does not shy away from describing her various romantic relationships and her marriage to photographer Alfred Stieglitz whose photos of her reveal his fascination with her face, her hands, and her form. Although they loved each other, Rubin describes some of the difficulties in the relationship; for instance, Georgia yearned to have a child, and Stieglitz was uninterested in that, claiming that motherhood will distract her from her art. I loved how much detail Rubin provides about the inspirations for O'Keeffe's paintings, the subjects of which ranged from large skyscrapers to flowers to desert scapes to bleached bones to a door in a wall. The book abounds with wonderful anecdotes such as how she just happened to stick a rose into the eye hole of a horse skull in order to answer the door. Ah, inspiration comes in many forms!

The paintings of O'Keeffe have long fascinated me because of how she recognized the beauty in the desert's bleak landscape and used color in such an extraordinary way. This book served to remind me of how original this painter truly was. I also appreciated Rubin's frequent explanation that O'Keeffe craved solitude at times and needed to be alone to work.