On November 9, 2013 the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas unveiled the exhibition The Artists’ Eye: Georgia O’Keeffe and the Alfred Stieglitz Collection. The monumental presentation features 101 works of American and European art as well as African art from the collection of photographer and gallery owner Alfred Stieglitz. Works on view include masterpieces by his wife, Georgia O’Keeffe, Arthur Dove, Charles Demuth, Marsden Hartley, John Marin, Paul Cezanne, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec.
The exhibition traces the rise of American Modernism, a movement that Stieglitz championed through his career as a photographer and gallerist. When he opened his gallery in the early 20th century, Stieglitz was one of the first gallery owners in the United States to showcase European Modernists. Soon, he became devoted to highlighting the works of American modernists, often purchasing artworks from them and providing them with studio space.
The collection that comprises The Artists’ Eye was donated to Fisk University in Nashville by O’Keeffe after Stieglitz’s death in 1946 and is now co-owned by Crystal Bridges and Fisk. The collection will travel between the two institutions every two years.
The Artists’ Eye will be on view at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art through February 3, 2014.
