Watercolors

Legendary Zelda

Episode 53: In Montgomery, Alabama, a few streets away from the Alabama State University campus, is a museum dedicated to the most famous couple of the 1920’s, F. Scott and Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald. For many, the Fitzgeralds provide the lens through which we now understand, or attempt to understand, the Roaring Twenties.

The Fitzgerald Museum is housed in the last home that the couple lived in together.  Scott and Zelda never owned a home and famously never settled down.  They rented this house in 1931-32, and since 1999 it is the one place in the world that the lay person can visit to learn of Scott and Zelda’s legacy.   The Fitzgerald Museum is now the permanent home that Scott and Zelda never had during their lifetime.

Brooke talks to Willie Thompson, the Executive Director of The Fitzgerald Museum, about the troubled and turbulent life of Zelda Fitzgerald and about her career as an artist.

The Fitzgerald Museum website can be found at thefitzgeraldmuseum.org and has information on the museum’s events including a breakfast celebrating Scott’s 120th birthday on Saturday, September 24, 2016, and an annual Fitzgerald Gala which takes place in April.  The Fitzgerald Gala is a “Jazz Age” party of epic proportions, and guests from all over the southeastern United States will be in attendance, decked out in 1910s, ’20s, and ’30s costumes.

Anniversary.Painting

Anniversary Painting, Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald

Zelda.NotreDame

Notre Dame, Paris  Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald

 

Zelda.Gawaine

Zelda Gawaine,  Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald

RhodehendronsRhododendrons, Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald

Featured Image:  Candler, North Carolina, Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald

 

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Far Wide Texas

Episode 34: One of the most significant artists of the 20th Century, Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986) was devoted to creating imagery that expressed what she called “the wideness and wonder of the world as I live in it.”  The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, offers insights not only into the artist’s paintings, but also her creative process and the light and landscape that inspired her.
Brooke talks to Dr. Cody Hartley, Director of Curatorial Affairs, about Georgia O’Keeffe’s Far Wide Texas, a collection of watercolors the artist created during the time she lived in Canyon, Texas (1916-1918). This was a period of radical innovation and marks O’Keeffe’s commitment to abstraction. Dr. Hartley explains how these paintings exemplify O’Keeffe’s refusal to be restrained by convention or to be defined by others.
In the words of O’Keeffe herself, “Take time to look…” And to listen.

Train at Night in the DesertTrain at Night in the Desert, 1916 Georgia O’Keeffe Watercolor on paper 11 7/8 x 8 7/8 (30.2 x 22.5) Amarillo Museum of Art. Purchased with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, Amarillo Area Foundation,Amarillo Art Alliance, The Mary Ann Weymouth Campbell Foundation, Santa Fe Industries Foundation,and Mary Fain (AM.1982.1.4)© Amarillo Museum of Art

Blue Line, 1919

Blue Line, 1919 Georgia O’Keeffe Oil on canvas 20 1/8 x 17 1/8 (51.1 x 43.5) Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Gift of The Burnett Foundation and The Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation (1997.04.004) © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum

 

 

 

Nude Series VIII, 1917

Nude Series VIII, 1917 Georgia O’Keeffe Watercolor on paper 18 x 13 1/2 (45.7 x 34.3) Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Gift of The Burnett Foundation and The Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation (1997.04.011) © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum

Featured Image (at top of the page) Cody Hartley standing by Autumn Trees – The Maple, 1924. Oil on canvas, 36 x 30 in (91.4 x 76.2 cm). Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Gift of The Burnett Foundation and Gerald and Kathleen Peters. © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum.

 

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