Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1916 (Heft 48))

The three-cornered exhibition at present occupying this quaintly uncommercial and
seemingly spellbound place is in nowise calculated to clarify either ideas or terms of expression.
It consists of a dozen or so of charcoal drawings alleged to be of thoughts, not things, by Georgia
O’Keeffe of Virginia; and a few further vagaries in color by Messrs. C. Duncan of New York
and Rene Lafferty of Philadelphia.
The trio have one peculiarity in common, and that is an absolute avoidance in their
pictures of any material object that eye has seen or could see. But while Miss O’Keeffe looks
within herself and draws with unconscious naivete what purports to be the innermost unfold-
ing of a girl’s being, like the germinating of a flower, the two men essay little journeys into space
and try to symbolize mentality as a fountain, or a ray, playing against abysmal depths of ether,
amidst whirling suns, and ever falling back into the same vast circular basin. Of course, these
are only surmises at interpretation of the pictured symbols; for in the blithe scheme of the
Photo-Secession there is no such thing as a catalogue, and the things tacked up on the walls are
uniformly innocent of title, number, or signature of any kind.
Robert J. Cole in the “Evening Sun”:
The latest number of “291,” the magazine that goes out from Alfred Stieglitz’s place on
Fifth Avenue, has just appeared and is dated February. What is a little thing like the calendar
between artists? There are two very fine examples of half-tone printing on uncoated paper—
the printer must be a good deal of an artist.
The first illustration is from a piece of Congo carving, “created” as De Zayas explains, by
“a mentality full of fear.” It is a logical product of Africa, the “land of fright.” Our own feel-
ing on beholding this kind of expression of the “victims of nature” is one of the deepest gratitude.
There is profound meaning to the student of race, of geography, of climate. But having
acknowledged the meaning, we may be permitted to turn the page with a feeling of relief and
mingle with Katharine Rhoades’ crowd—
“Black spots moving walking . . . scattering
“Interminably dull yet irresistibly hypnotic
“A narcotic
“ Dull monotonous thuds and endless motion of men.”
Mrs. Roosevelt’s tennis player is a twist and a curve, the arc described by the racquet,
no doubt. Picabia contents himself with words. “I maintain,” he asserts, “that the painting
of today is the most truthful and the purest expression of our modern life.”
But which of the paintings produced at this time are “modern paintings”?
Hanging in the galleries at “291 ” are the strange expressions of three persons, all of whom
were—and perhaps yet are—in a state of “struggle.” The beholder will have to interpret them
for the most part for himself. There is this vital difference, however: all being the result of
intensely personal states, part of them carry the expression outside of the personality and others
do not. Among the former we get the dragon fly with the suggested lines of its flight and the
comet that burns its blue and red passage through illimitable ether.
O, Georgia!
Let’s see. Are artists all supposed to “record their emotions in their work”? If so we
pause. Georgia O’Keeffe has some drawings at the “291” gallery. We pause. O, Georgia!