New York skyscrapers (O'Keeffe)
 New York Street with Moon, 1925 |
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The Shelton with Sunspots, N.Y., 1926 |
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City Night, 1926 |
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New York Night, 1928 / 1929 |
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East River from the Thirtieth Story of the Shelton Hotel, 1928 |
Georgia O'Keeffe created a series of paintings of New York skyscrapers between 1925 and 1929. They were made after O'Keeffe moved with her new husband into an apartment on the 30th floor of the Shelton Hotel, which gave her expansive views of all but the west side of the city. She expressed her appreciation of the city's early skyscrapers that were built by the end of the 1920s. One of her most notable works, which demonstrates her skill at depicting the buildings in the Precisionist style, is the Radiator Building—Night, New York, of the American Radiator Building.
In November 1925, O'Keeffe moved into one of New York City's tallest skyscrapers, the Shelton Hotel, with her husband of one year, Alfred Stieglitz They lived on the 30th floor with clear, unobstructed northern, eastern, and southern views of the city. The building was located between 48th and 49th Streets on Lexington Avenue. O'Keeffe said of her interest in painting cityscapes, "I know it's unusual for an artist to want to work way up near the roof of a big hotel, in the heart of a roaring city, but I think that's just what the artist of today needs for stimulus... Today the city is something bigger, grander, more complex than ever before in history."
Like photographer Charles Sheeler, watercolorist Charles Demuth, and other artists, she was interested in capturing "the mystique of the skyscrapers" that were a symbol of the modern world, and, at that time, a largely American phenomenon. Claude Fayette Bragdon, an American architect, said, "Not only is the skyscraper a symbol of the American Spirit—restless, centrifugal, seriously poised—but it is the only original development in the field of architecture to which we can lay unchallenged claim."
New York skyline in 1920
10 East 40th Street, in New York City, built in the 1920s
1932 skyscrapers
O'Keeffe made about 25 drawings and paintings of New York City skyscrapers and cityscapes between 1925 and 1929. The works are evocative of the Charles Sheeler's Precisionist style.
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