Product Description

Ansel Adams and Georgia O'Keeffe first metin Taos, New Mexico, in 1929. She was already an established artist, while he was at the beginning of his career, and their friendship lasted for the rest of their lives.

GEORGIA O'KEEFE AND ANSEL ADAMS: NATURAL AFFINITIES suggests parallels in their distinctive visions of both natural and human-made environments and illustrates the artists' achievements in capturing the reality and essence of the world around them. More than 100 beautifully reproduced paintings and photographs are accompanied by critical essays on Adams and O'Keeffe and a biographical essay on the friendship between Adams, O'Keeffe, and Alfred Stieglitz.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #97952 in Books
• Published on: 2008-09-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 176 pages

About the Author
Barbara Buhler Lynes is the curator of the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum and the author of numerous exhibition catalogues, essays, and books on O'Keeffe's work, including the Catalogue Raisonne. Anne Hammond is the guest curator of the exhibition entitled "Georgia'OKeeffe and Ansel Adams: Natural Affinities" and the author of Ansel Adams: Divine Performance. Journalist, documentary filmmaker, and critic Richard B. Woodward writes frequently about the arts for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Sandra S. Phillips is the curator of photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Customer Reviews

See the show, skip the book
I just saw this show at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art. The show was very well put together, except that the Ansel Adams photographs were over matted covering a slight amount of the border and Ansel's signature.

Copies of this book were available at the show and after seeing the actual art I was very disappointed in the quality of the book. The color reproductions of O'Keeffe's work were OK, but the reproductions of the photographs were just awful. The reproductions appeared flat in comparison to the photographs but also in comparison to many other better reproductions of Ansel's work. No only that but there appeared to be a lot of dust on the photographs when they were reproduced. For instance the black sky in his iconic 'Moonrise Over Hernandez New Mexico' has several dozen white spots in the sky. Other photographs suffer from this same problem. It is unfortunate since the show included a couple images I had not seen reproduced before.

The publisher of this book (Little Brown) has recently published several of Ansel's books in the past including 'Trees' and the excellent '400 photographs.' Both of these books were printed in Western Europe. For some reason (probably to save money) they decided to go with a printer in Singapore for this book, the quality unfortunately suffered.

Talent by Nature
The images contained within Georgia O'Keefe and Ansel Adams: Natural Affinities are stunningly radiant - and in the literal sense, you will be physically stunned and unable to move, paralyzed by their beauty and will end up staring, fixated upon them as if the images were icons of something divine and simply looking at them would reveal to you all of the secrets of the universe.

Simply gorgeous reproductions of two of the most important artists of the twentieth century are shown, along with essays explaining them, and the dynamic between the two artists. Ansel Adams and Georgia O'Keefe's work is compared, and parallels are drawn between the two in the commentary, which is actually quite insightful.

The words, however astute and perceptive they may be (and they are), are most definitely not the highlight of the book; It, of course, is quite obvious that the resplendent paintings and photographs steal the show. O'Keefe's paintings are, somehow, simultaneously loud and soft-spoken. They jump out of the book and become people in flamboyant dress that act in such a way that they give off an aura of quiet-confidence. The universally appealing curves she employs combine with her seemingly everlasting color-palette to create deeply emotional and moving work, and her effortless and natural use of symbolism is so highly refined and subtle that it may not ever be matched.

Adams' photography is equally riveting, showing exactly why he is considered one of the most influential artists in the history of the medium. His body of work ranges from extremely intimate and personal looks into his own life, to awe-inspiring larger-than-life landscapes. His work that captures jagged, sharp, and rough forms found within nature is particularly compelling, seeing as these shapes and the emotions that they induce are not usually associated with nature.

The ironically earth-shattering work of both artists is simply fascinating. The prose included is almost as significant as the visual art, and both combine to make a non-pretentious yet supremely fantastic book - a task not easily done. An absolute necessity for any person that has functioning eyeballs, Georgia O'Keefe and Ansel Adams: Natural Affinities is one of the most significant books of a quite an expansive amount of time.

Reviewed by Jordan Dacayanan

Excellent
I received this beautiful book in excellent condition. I had just been to the exhibit it is based upon and I was not disappointed. The book captures the essence of their works with stellar art and photo reproductions. Next best thing to being there! I thought O'Keefe was unbelievable and then turned to the incredible black and white photography of Adams. I love color, but the almost silken quality and exquisite detail of these photos stopped me in my tracks. The affinities, mutual respect, friendship and admiration the two artists had for each other turned out to be instrumental to the continued creativity of both.