Last month, members and guests of the Arts Society Wokingham enjoyed an illustrated talk on the life and art of the prominent American artist Georgia O’Keeffe.
A Modernist painter, O’Keeffe is possibly best known for her paintings of beautiful outsized flowers but Lydia Baumann chose to base her lecture more on the painter’s interpretation of the New Mexican landscape.
Lydia took her audience on a journey in the footsteps of the painter, further and further into the desert from Santa Fe to Taos and finally to Abiquiu where she settled.
O’Keefe was influenced by the current surrealist interest in skulls. Sun blanched carcasses of cows were often found in the desert and she chose to paint many images of the stark and angular cow’s skulls which she saw as a symbol of the pioneers of the Wild West.
The landscape in Abiquiu inspired her to flatten her style of painting leading to a concentration on the line, colour and shape of the mountains, rocks and cliffs in what she called her ’back yard’.
She often painted these landscapes from inside her car which explains why the images had to be quite small compared with her large flower paintings which she painted in her studio.
In contrast, the Society is moving to urban New York for its next lecture.
Norman Rockwell was a prolific painter and illustrator living in New York. He was most famous for his cover illustrations of everyday life which he created for The Saturday Evening Post magazine for more than 50 years.
They are folksy images of Middle America and have been dismissed for decades by art critics as over-sentimental.
His reputation has soared in recent years as a new generation comes to appreciate his humanity and inventiveness and he is revered by film directors George Lucas and Steven Spielberg for his brilliant storytelling.
This illustrated talk by Rupert Dickens will take place at 7.45pm on Monday, November 20, at King’s Academy, Binfield.
Guests are always welcome but do email memsectheartssocietywham@gmail.com to register beforehand.
The talk will also be live-streamed and available to watch from home on the society’s own YouTube channel.
For further details please visit the Society’s website: www.The ArtsSocietyWokingham.org.uk
Sue Bryant
