Alfred Stieglitz

flush-mounted, mounted again to a larger board, inscribed 'OK-6B-' by Doris Bry in pencil on the reverse, framed, a Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, exhibition label on the reverse, 1933

The photographer to Georgia O'Keeffe

Doris Bry, New York, as agent

Acquired by the Gilman Paper Company from the above, 1976

Sotheby's New York, Important Photographs from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Including Works from the Gilman Paper Company Collection, 14 February 2006, Sale 8165, Lot 20

New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Georgia O'Keeffe: Abstraction, September 2009 - January 2010

Greenough 1520

Georgia O'Keeffe, Georgia O'Keeffe: A Portrait by Alfred Stieglitz (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1978), pl. 45

Ann Tucker, Target II: 5 American Photographers: De Meyer, White, Stieglitz, Strand, Weston (The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1981), p. 33

Keith Davis, An American Century of Photography: From Dry-Plate to Digital: The Hallmark Photographic Collection (Kansas City, 1999, second edition), pl. 181

This photograph shows an exceptional level of detail throughout, in the velvety dark areas as well as the luminous highlights. It is essentially in excellent condition. There is some minor edge chipping, and the tip of the lower right corner is bumped, which is only visible upon close examination. When examained closely in raking light, 2 small, faint linear indentations are barely visible in the center of the image, neither of which breaks the emulsion. Tiny deposits of expertly applied original retouching can be seen in raking light, which are not immediately apparent. None of these issues detracts in any way from the fine appearance of this early print. The secondary mount is age-darkened at the edges. The reverse of the secondary mount is affixed at the corners to the mat.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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In the summer of 1933, with proceeds from the sale of one of her paintings, Georgia O’Keeffe purchased the new Ford V-8 convertible coupe against which she poses in the photograph offered here.  O’Keeffe was inspired to learn to drive during the summers she spent in the vast landscape of the southwest.  In sparsely populated New Mexico, a driver’s license was not required.  In 1929, she purchased her first automobile—a black Ford sedan—with Rebecca Strand for a few hundred dollars.  Soon she was awkwardly shifting gears on the bumpy roads around Santa Fe and Taos, much to the consternation of her instructors, Strand and Tony Luhan.  O’Keeffe persevered, however, and soon the deserts, pueblos, and natural monuments were all within her reach, from behind the wheel of the Ford. 

As Roxana Robinson has observed, in her Georgia O’Keeffe: A Life (New York, 1989), O’Keeffe’s automobile and the act of driving were both signs of her growing independence and freedom in New Mexico, away from Alfred Stieglitz and Lake George.  Indeed, O’Keeffe initially kept her driving and road trips a secret, anxious about what reaction Stieglitz might have.  In the end, as Robinson recounts, Stieglitz supported her, but he may have simply faced the inevitable.  His own attempts to drive were never very successful: as Robinson states, ‘Of the two, it was Georgia who exploited the great possibilities of the automobile’ (p. 343).  O’Keeffe purchased her new V-8 at Lake George in 1933, and soon thereafter got her New York State driver’s license. 

Whatever his conflicted reactions to O’Keeffe’s new-found mobility may have been, Stieglitz made some of his most powerful portraits of her beside the Ford V-8 coupe, including the photograph offered here, as well as several studies of her hand against the car’s spare tire (Greenough 1515 and 1519).   

In Alfred Stieglitz: The Key Set: The Alfred Stieglitz Collection of Photographs, Sarah Greenough locates 4 other gelatin silver prints made from this negative (OK 6 B): at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Hallmark Photographic Collection, Kansas City; and in a private collection.  Doris Bry’s census accounts for the above-listed prints, but she points out that the private collection print was acquired by the Museé d’Orsay in 2003.  Additionally, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, owns a print of this image.