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Robert Torchia, “Georgia O'Keeffe/Sky with Flat White Cloud/1962,” American Paintings, 1900–1945, NGA Online Editions, https://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/70184 (accessed December 22, 2024).

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Overview

Painted late in her career when she was experimenting with unconventional viewpoints, Sky with Flat White Cloud is the second in a series of seven paintings in which Georgia O’Keeffe took inspiration from flying in an airplane high above the earth’s surface, observing the surrounding atmosphere and cloud formations. Excited by the experience of air travel, she remarked, “I’ve often thought how wonderful it would be to simply stand out in space and have nothing!”

In this painting and two others in the group, she divided the vista into three horizontal bands; the largest represents the solid cloudbank, which is surmounted by a narrow band of yellowish haze (possibly inspired by the airplane’s contrail) and the blue atmosphere above. In the other paintings, she represented the clouds as “little oval white clouds, all more or less alike,” as they appear in her last undertaking of the series, the monumental twenty-four-foot-long Sky Above Clouds IV (1965, Art Institute of Chicago).

Entry

Sky with Flat White Cloud is the second among a series of seven paintings in which Georgia O’Keeffe explored an unfamiliar perspective—the sky and clouds as seen from an airplane in flight.[1] The artist described how her unusual and original choice of viewpoint was inspired by an experience she had traveling by air: “One day I was flying back to New Mexico, the sky below was a most beautiful solid white. It looked so secure that I thought I could walk right out on it to the horizon if the door opened. The sky beyond was a light clear blue. It was so wonderful that I couldn’t wait to be home to paint it.”[2] The view from the airplane window evoked two recurrent themes in O’Keeffe’s work, serenity and limitless space. While she was working on the cloud series, she said, “I’ve often thought how wonderful it would be to simply stand out in space and have nothing!”[3] These images evoke her fantasy of stepping into that void.

O’Keeffe’s cloud paintings are reminiscent of her husband Alfred Stieglitz’s photographs of cloud formations from the 1920s, collectively known as Equivalents, that he defined as “direct revelations of a man’s world in the sky—documents of eternal relations—perhaps even a philosophy.”[4] O’Keeffe had also experimented with cloudlike forms in an earlier painting, A Celebration (1924, Seattle Art Museum).

In Sky with Flat White Cloud, O’Keeffe represented the sky as three horizontal bands. The largest represents the solid cloudbank, surmounted by a narrow band of yellowish haze (possibly inspired by the airplane’s contrail) that leads to the blue sky above. The composition corresponds to that of the first picture of the series, Sky Above the Flat White Cloud II [fig. 1], but the painting in the National Gallery of Art’s collection is twice as large.[5] The large canvas fills the viewer’s field of vision, and the exaggerated horizontal axis emphasizes a sense of infinity.

The next three versions of the theme, Above the Clouds I [fig. 2], Sky Above Clouds II [fig. 3], and Sky Above Clouds III [fig. 4], were all inspired by a different flight in which the artist found the sky dotted with “little oval white clouds, all more or less alike.”[6] In these paintings, she represented the clouds as pebble-like forms arranged in a bright blue sky. In the sixth painting in the series, Clouds 5/Yellow Horizon and Clouds [fig. 5], O’Keeffe reverted to the format of the first two pictures but added a diagonal path through the clouds ascending from left to right. In the seventh and final painting in the series, the twenty-four-foot-long Sky Above Clouds IV [fig. 6], O’Keeffe returned to the “little oval white clouds” motif on a monumental scale.

Robert Torchia

July 24, 2024

Inscription

center right reverse: Sky With Flat White Cloud / 1961?

Provenance

The artist [1887-1986]; her estate; bequest 1987 to NGA.

Associated Names

O'Keeffe, Georgia

Exhibition History

1970
Georgia O'Keeffe Retrospective Exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Art Institute of Chicago; San Francisco Museum of Art, 1970-1971, no. 116.
1993
Georgia O'Keeffe: American and Modern, The Hayward Gallery, London; Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City; Yokohama Museum of Art, Japan, 1993-1994, no. 85.
1997
Birth of the Cool. American Painting - from Georgia O'Keeffe to Christopher Wool, Deichtorhallen Hamburg; Kunsthaus Zürich, 1997, unnumbered catalogue, pl. 2.
1998
American Light: Selections from the National Gallery of Art, Art Museum of Western Virginia, Roanoke, May-August 1998, no catalogue.
1998
Shifting Visions: O'Keeffe, Guston, Richter, Des Moines Art Center, 1998-1999, no. 33, repro.
1998
Treasures of Light: Paintings from the National Gallery of Art, Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis, March-April 1998, no catalogue.
2000
[O'Keeffe exhibition], Bakersfield Museum of Art, California, 2000.
2001
O'Keeffe's O'Keeffes: The Artist's Collection, Milwaukee Art Museum; Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark, 2001-2002, no. 72, repro.
2007
Georgia O'Keeffe: Nature and Abstraction, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Vancouver Art Gallery, 2007-2008, no. 72, repro.
2011
Georgia O'Keeffe, Fondazione Roma Museo, Palazzo Cipolla, Rome; Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, Munich; Helsinki Art Museum Tennis Palace, 2011-2012, no. 65, repro. (Italian catalogue), no. 171, repro. (German and Finnish catalogues).
2013
Letzte Bilder: Von Manet bis Kippenberger [Final Works. From Manet to Kippenberger], Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, 2013, unnumbered catalogue, repro.
2015
Collection Conversations: The Chrysler and the National Gallery, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, 2015-2016, no catalogue.
2016
Georgia O'Keeffe, Tate Modern, London; Bank Austria Kunstforum, Vienna; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 2016-2017, unnumbered catalogue.

Technical Summary

The unlined, medium-weight support remains mounted on an original stretcher manufactured by Arco, Inc., Glendale, New York. The tacking margins are intact, and selvage edges are present at the right and left sides. The artist probably applied the thin white ground after the support was stretched. The paint layers were applied thinly and in opaque layers, with some variation in texture. Despite passages of thicker, raised brushwork, where broader handling is evident, the weave of the canvas remains prominent. Other than minor damage caused by a dent in the lower-right corner and some areas where crackle has developed, the painting is in good condition. The surface is coated with a thin layer of synthetic resin varnish.

Michael Swicklik

July 24, 2024

Bibliography

1970
Goodrich, Lloyd, and Doris Bry. Georgia O'Keeffe. Exh. cat. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Art Institute of Chicago; San Francisco Museum of Art. New York, 1970: 28.
1971
Eldredge, Charles C. "Georgia O'Keeffe: the development of an American modern." Ph.D. diss., University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 1971: 108-110, fig. 72.
1984
Hoffman, Katherine. An Enduring Spirit: The Art of Georgia O’Keeffe. Metuchen, NJ, 1984: 118.
1991
Eldredge, Charles C. Georgia O'Keeffe. New York, 1991: 147, 150, repro.
1992
American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 252, repro.
1993
Eldredge, Charles C. Georgia O'Keeffe: American and Modern Exh. cat. Hayward Gallery, London; El Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City; and Yokohama Museum of Art, 1993-1994. New Haven and London, 1993: 209, color pl. 85.
1999
Lynes, Barbara Buhler. Georgia O'Keeffe: Catalogue Raisonné. 2 vols. New Haven and London, 1999: 2:902-903, no. 1473, color repro.
2004
Joseph S. Czestochowski, ed., Georgia O’Keeffe: Vision of the Sublime. Memphis, 2004: pl. 77

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