How did Alfred Stieglitz’s photographs affect the public image of Georgia O’Keeffe?

Alfred Stieglitz’s photographs significantly shaped the public perception of Georgia O’Keeffe, though often in ways she strongly opposed. In 1921, Stieglitz exhibited a large series of photographs he had taken of O’Keeffe, many of which depicted her in the nude or in various stages of undress, often posed alongside her abstract paintings.1

By equating the creative process with sexual energy, Stieglitz framed O’Keeffe’s work as the visual manifestation of a sexually liberated woman. This association captured the attention of critics, leading to a wave of Freudian and gendered interpretations of her art that dominated her critical reception throughout the 1920s.12

O’Keeffe, who rejected the essentialist notion that gender determined artistic competence, found this sexualized public image reductive. Consequently, she worked to reshape her identity by cultivating a public image as a serious, hardworking professional. She eventually curtailed the exhibition of her early abstractions and shifted her focus toward recognizable forms to distance herself from the gendered readings Stieglitz’s promotion had invited.213