The city men. The men. They. The words crop up again and again as this astonishingly aggressive woman tells us what was on her mind when she was making her astonishingly aggressive paintings. It was those city men who stood accused of sentimentalizing her flowers: “I made you take time to look at what I saw and when you took time to really notice my flower you hung all your associations with flowers on my flower and you write about my flower as if I think and see what you think and see—and I don’t.” And I don’t. Imagine those words spoken, and the sound you hear is don’t tread on me. “The men” believed it impossible to paint New York, so Georgia O’Keeffe painted New York. “The men” didn’t think much of her bright color, so she made it brighter. The men yearned toward Europe so she went to Texas, and then New Mexico.
(The White Album)
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