O’Keeffe and Moore

There is currently a wonderful touring exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. The show is called Georgia O’Keeffe and Henry Moore: Giants of Modern Art. This meticulously curated exhibition is a creation of the San Diego Museum of Art and will not be shown in any other Canadian city.

Far from being a simple parallel display of two well-known artists, the exhibition brings the visitor on a journey, highlighting how, despite having lived on different continents and having worked (mainly) with different media, the artists evolved in similar ways, approached nature with awe and reverence and took their inspiration from it. O’Keeffe (1887-1986) and Moore (1898-1986) both lived in a big city before relocating to a rural setting where they could more easily connect with the natural world.

We came out of the exhibition both enriched and invigorated.

The explanatory panels in each section are informative and beautifully written. The different thematic components of the exhibition flow seamlessly, from room to room. The drawings, paintings and sculptures on display were selected with great care to highlight the affinity of the artists with the natural world. The museum website provides a succinct description of the different elements of the exhibition.

The journey though the exhibition is uplifting, and the artists’ energy and connection with nature can be felt throughout. There is an impressive recreation of each artist’s studio in the exhibition: the simplicity of their creative environment is touching. They both collected “living” things (bones, stones, shells, branches, driftwood and flowers), kept them close at hand and studied their structure and texture with care.

The art exhibition is crowned by two insightful interviews with the artists in their senior years. The films are shown in an adjacent room. If you go, make sure not to miss that.  The exhibition goes on until June 2, 2024.

Moore is well-known for his large abstract bronze sculptures which can be found around the world. We remember his sculpture titled Reclining Connected Forms (1969) on the campus of Trinity College in Dublin, where we both studied.

Many of the sculptures included in the current exhibition depict abstractions of the human form. The undulating shapes of his reclining figures are said to evoke rolling landscapes. The sculpture titled Mother and Child (1978) is carved out of a stalactite. The piece was inspired by the shape of a large seashell to which a smaller one was attached. The unique grain and colour of this piece are worth the visit.

Georgia O’Keeffe settled and worked in New Mexico for most of her career. Many of her paintings are inspired by the landscapes that can be found around Abiquiu and her home on the Ghost Ranch. Pedernal, a distinctive local mesa, was one of her favourite subjects.  

We bought a fridge magnet when we visited the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe a few years ago. On it there is the artist’s famous quote “Take time to look.” We see that exhortation every day and we aspire to live by it.

In 2023, we visited the parts of the state of New Mexico where she lived and painted. We put together a few pictures in the video below, showing the amazing rock formations around Abiquiu and at the Ghost Ranch. We hope you enjoy it.

Feature Image: Photograph of Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. 3 by Georgia O’Keeffe (1930) and Working Model for Upright Internal/External Form by Henry Moore (1951).