Author Description

Alfred Stieglitz took his first photographs of the artist Georgia O'Keeffe at his gallery "291" in the spring of 1917. His idea of a portrait was not just one photograph but a series of images that would portray many aspects of a person. His Portrait of O'Keeffe, which ultimately comprised more than three hundred photographs taken during a twenty-year period, was and remains revolutionary in its multiplicity, range, and psychological insight. In 1978 The Metropolitan Museum of Art published the first edition of this book, which included fifty-one photographs selected by Georgia O'Keeffe, who wrote a fascinating introduction explaining the origins of these photographs, as well as her reflections on them many years after they were made. This edition represents a significant expansion of that book; it is published on the occasion of the Museum's acquisition - through a generous gift - of seventy-four photographs from the Portrait, a group of the most exquisite and beloved photographic prints ever made. To the original plates have been added thirty additional reproductions, so that the Metropolitan Museum's entire collection of prints that make up the Portrait of O'Keeffe is now fully represented. Maria Morris Hambourg, the Museum's curator of photography, provides a thoughtful discussion of the history and meaning of the Portrait, along with technical notes on the plates.