Georgia O'Keeffe

Movie / Show Details

Amazon.com

While there are numerous documentaries about the iconoclastic modernist painter Georgia O’Keeffe, there has been a dearth of dramatized renditions of her life. Maybe the waiting has not been in vain, because we now have this lovely and respectable biopic courtesy of director Bob Balaban. Georgia O’Keeffe stars Joan Allen as Georgia, and Jeremy Irons as the astute yet eccentric gallerist and artist Alfred Steiglitz. Though the couple’s artistic reign was extensive and highly influential, the crux of this film’s narrative centers on Georgia and Alfred’s tumultuous love affair. Beginning with a scene in which Steiglitz is already exhibiting O’Keeffe’s work, they meet on conflicting terms that lead to her staying in New York as Steiglitz quickly falls in love with her enigmatic charm. From here, the viewer begins to understand how Steiglitz fortified O’Keeffe’s career and reputation in the art world, while he was detrimental to her personal life. Though the film does clearly sympathize with O’Keeffe’s challenging relationship to Steiglitz, it also does a fair job of showing how important a character he was to the modern art movement. While Georgia O’Keeffe is a drama and not an art historical documentary, it does give one a solid sense of the period’s intellectual climate. It focuses chronologically on the latter half of O’Keeffe’s life, when she discovers solace and inspiration in Taos and Abiquiu, New Mexico. In the end, the film is also a tender portrait of a liberated woman who was a protofeminist and a fierce talent. –Trinie Dalton

Product Description

The turbulent, 20-year love affair between artist Georgia O’Keeffe and photographer Alfred Steiglitz fuels some of the most important art of the 20th century.