Foursome

by Carolyn Burke

  “You must know how much”: RSS to AS, May 13, 1928, ASA/YCAL.

  “I am quite a normal being”: GOK to Catherine O’Keeffe Klenert, May 29, 1928, Robinson, p. 307.

  “I don’t want to waste”: AS to GOK, May 23, 1928, MFO, p. 383.

  “It is as terrifically”: GOK to AS, May 27, 1928, MFO, pp. 381–82.

  “I look around and wonder”: GOK to McBride, misdated May 11, 1928, evidently June 1928, YCAL; Whelan, Alfred Stieglitz, p. 501.

  “I have robbed you”: AS to GOK, July 12, 1928, MFO, pp. 386–87.

  “The beginning of our togetherness”: AS to GOK, July 12, 1928, MFO, p. 389.

  “a sort of Bible”: AS, quoted in Seligmann, p. 135.

  “It’s a powerful book”: AS to GOK, July 25, 1928, MFO, pp. 397–98.

  “not a thought in my head”: GOK to Florine Stettheimer, September 21, 1928, YCAL; cited in Drohojowska-Philp, p. 290.

  “Perhaps more than anyone”: PS, “Marin Not an Escapist,” The New Republic, July 5, 1928, pp. 254–55.

  “Am glad it’s in print”: AS to PS, July 20, 1928, CCP.

  “projections of an elemental vision”: PS, “Lachaise,” The Second American Caravan, pp. 650–58.

  “reads splendidly”: AS to PS, October 11, 1928, CCP.

  “I felt you must walk”: RSS to AS, October 3, 1928, ASA/YCAL.

  “It is just that nice”: Hartley to RSS, October 14, 1928, RSJ/YCAL.

  “good angel”; “almost selfless”: Hartley to RSS, February 7, 1929, RSJ/YCAL.

  “Something in me”: PS to AS, July 24, 1928, ASA/YCAL.

  “He felt for the first time”: PS to AS, September 10, 1928, ASA/YCAL.

  “The artist, by a sort”: Harold Clurman, “Photographs by Paul Strand,” Creative Art, October 1929, p. 735.

  “a little talk”: RSS to AS, July 30, 1928, ASA/YCAL.

  “I really feel”: ibid.

  “The average I think”: PS to AS, September 22[?], 1928, ASA/YCAL.

  “felt Lawrence had become”: PS to AS, September 10, 1928, ASA/YCAL.

  “the America that was pirating”: PS to AS, October 30, 1928, ASA/YCAL.

  “to challenge the entire country”: AS, quoted in Seligmann, p. 135.

  “indelicate”: Mabel Dodge Luhan, “The Art of Georgia O’Keeffe,” typescript, Mabel Dodge Luhan Archive, YCAL.

  “as I have never dreamed”: Norman, Encounters, pp. 71–72.

  “She always looks at me”: Norman to AS, December 10, 1928, Dorothy Norman Papers, YCAL; MFO, p. 380.

  CHAPTER 14: HOW CLOSELY WE 4 HAVE GROWN TOGETHER

  “That I haven’t thought”: GOK to Mitchell Kennerley, 1929, Mitchell Kennerley papers, New York Public Library; Drohojowska-Philp, p. 293.

  Georgia ordered: The garments in question may be those featured in Corn, Georgia O’Keeffe, pp. 50–53, where they are attributed to GOK.

  “the gayest note”: Hartley to RSS, January 26, 1929, RSJ/YCAL.

  “The thing I enjoy”: GOK to MK, January 20, 1929, Cowart and Hamilton, p. 187.

  “The barn is a very healthy”: ibid.

  The remarks of some critics: For reviews of GOK’s 1929 exhibition, see Lynes, O’Keeffe, Stieglitz, and the Critics, pp. 294–306.

  “I must get back”: GOK to Ettie Stettheimer, August 24, 1929, ASA/YCAL.

  “truant artists”: Henry McBride, “American Expatriates in Paris,” The Dial, April 1929; reprinted in McBride, The Flow of Art, pp. 255–57.

  “I want to get into”: Hartley to RSS, March 26, 1929, RSJ/YCAL.

  “If I can keep my courage”: GOK to Blanche Matthias, April 1929, ASA/YCAL; Robinson, p. 319.

  “precise, clear, fundamental”: Gaston Lachaise, in Paul Strand, New Photographs (New York: Intimate Gallery, 1929), unpaginated.

  “to the vegetable kingdom”: “Photo Art: Many Experiments Enliven Current Exploits,” New York Times, March 24, 1929.

  “arrangements of matter”: M.P. [Murdock Pemberton], “The Galleries,” The New Yorker, March 30, 1929, p. 80.

  “I’m afraid you have”: AS to PS, March 31, 1929, ASA/YCAL.

  “I can’t help it”: RSS to PS, April 27, 1920, CCP.

  “Well we did it ourselves”: GOK to AS, April 27, 1929, MFO, p. 409.

  “The difficulty in getting out”: GOK, quoted in Tomkins GOK notes, MOMA.

  “All my American”: RSS to PS, Monday [late April], 1929, CCP.

  “We are here”: GOK to AS, April 30, 1929, MFO, p. 411.

  “began working on us”: RSS to PS, May 2, CCP.

  “a terrible yearning”: RSS to PS, May 2, 1929, CCP.

  “This really isn’t like”: GOK to AS, May 2, 1929, MFO, pp. 411–12.

  “I wish I could tell you”: GOK to AS, May 7, 1929, MFO, p. 416.

  “That’s why I’m here”: GOK to AS, May 4, 1929, MFO, p. 416.

  “astral bodies”: RSS to PS, May 8, 1929, CCP.

  “the whole landscape has”: RSS to PS, May 7, 1929, CCP.

  “It is as though I fall”: GOK to AS, May 21, 1929, MFO, p. 424.

  “I just feel so like expanding”: GOK to AS, June 13, 1929, MFO, p. 434.

  “a resonance that banged”: RSS to PS, May 8, 1929, CCP.

  “Georgia looked at my pastels”: RSS to PS, May 12, 1929, CCP.

  “She makes a fierce face”: GOK to AS, May 22, 1929, MFO, p. 426.

  “Georgia is extremely”: RSS to PS, Thursday [May 23, 1929], CCP.

  “This seems to be”: GOK to AS, June 14, 1929, MFO, p. 434.

  “I wish you could”: RSS to PS, May 5, 1929, CCP.

  “My night is so different”: GOK to AS, June 15, 1929, MFO, p. 437.

  “She must be looking”: AS to GOK, June 21, 1929, MFO, p. 438.

  “We both say”: RSS to PS, Thursday [May 23, 1929], CCP.

  “He doesn’t know”: GOK to AS, May 29, 1929, MFO, p. 428.

  “He feels he has”: RSS to PS, May 31, 1929, CCP.

  “the transformation”: DeWitt, p. 8.

  “I know that artificial”: RSS to PS, May 21, 1929, CCP. Robinson notes, “Georgia encouraged Beck to work, but it was Beck who recognized as subjects some of the things for which Georgia would become famous” (p. 332).

  “G & I get into”: RSS to PS, June 1, 1929, CCP.

  “The miracle of Georgia’s”: RSS to PS, June 1, 1929, CCP.

  “a million years old”: AS to GOK, June 6, 1929, MFO, p. 431.

  “My photographs are a picture”: AS, quoted in Norman, Alfred Stieglitz, p. 161.

  “The best thing”: GOK to AS, June 30, 1929, MFO, p. 449.

  “welded together”: GOK to Mabel Dodge Luhan, June 29, 1929, MDL/YCAL; MFO, p. 448, n. 86.

  “much more clear”: GOK to Mabel Dodge Luhan, July 6, 1929, MDL/YCAL; MFO, pp. 450–51.

  “I made up my mind”: GOK to AS, July 2, 1929, MFO, p. 452.

  “I had a terrific erection”: AS to GOK, July 6, 1929, MFO, p. 457.

  “a long discourse”: Clurman, p. 56.

  “Never have I seen”: PS to GOK, July 11, 1929, YCAL; MFO, p. 474, n. 120.

  “letting it become”: PS to GOK, July 14, 1929, YCAL; MFO, p. 508, n. 156.

  “For seven years”: RSS to AS, August 8, 1929, ASA/YCAL. Beck added, “He did too—for me.”

  “I must see you”: AS to GOK, July 16, 1929, MFO, p. 483.

  “I have been thinking entirely”: AS to RSS, July 19, 1929, MFO, p. 485.

  “We do such things here”: GOK to Henry McBride, July 1931, Robinson, p. 330.

  “We have had a beautiful relationship”: RSS to PS, June 19, 1929, CCP.

  “How closely”: RSS to AS, July 17, 1929, ASA/YCAL
.

  “going to pieces”: Leopold Stieglitz to GOK, July 20, 1929, YCAL; MFO, p. 491, n. 138.

  “You are absolutely”: AS to RSS, July 21, 1929, ASA/YCAL.

  “You have lived very close”: ibid.

  “I don’t know”: AS to GOK, July 28, 1929, MFO, p. 499.

  “One night gone”: RSS to GOK, July 27, 1929, YCAL.

  “I will be glad”: RSS to GOK, Sunday [July 28, 1929], ASA/YCAL.

  “I took a lot of pretty awful punishment”: RSS to GOK, August 2, 1929, ASA/YCAL.

  “The suffering not”: PS to AS, Saturday [August 3, 1929], ASA/YCAL.

  “Now that some other”: RSS to AS, August 8, 1929, ASA/YCAL.

  “The cataclysm comes”: PS to AS, August 19, 1929, ASA/YCAL.

  “the most perfect thing”: GOK to Mabel Dodge Luhan [September 1929], MDL/YCAL; Cowart and Hamilton, p. 196.

  “The Room is an admission”: Norman to AS [October] 1929, Drohojowska-Philp, p. 313

  “In spite of its pathos”: PS to AS, August 19, 1929, ASA/YCAL.

  “To start anything”: AS to RSS, October 24, 1929, ASA/YCAL.

  “The summer had brought me”: GOK to Mabel Dodge Luhan [letter 1, September 1929], MDL/YCAL; Whelan, Alfred Stieglitz, p. 516.

  “With the smash up”: AS to Dorothy Norman, October 21, 1929, YCAL; Drohojowska-Philp, p. 312.

  “This has been a trying”: PS to AS, Sunday [October 1929], YCAL.

  “It seems to me”: GOK to RSS, November 5, 1929, YCAL; Cowart and Hamilton, p. 199.

  CHAPTER 15: NEW YORK IN NEW MEXICO

  “American it is”: Edward Alden Jewell, “New Marin Water-Colors,” New York Times, January 4, 1930.

  “I am very chipper”: RSS to Mabel Dodge Luhan, January 5, 1930, MDL/YCAL.

  “I saw the crosses”: GOK, Georgia O’Keeffe, unpaginated.

  “Georgia O’Keeffe went”: McBride, “O’Keeffe in Taos,” New York Sun, January 8, 1930; reprinted in McBride, The Flow of Art, pp. 260–62.

  “The pictures look perfectly”: Edward Alden Jewell, “New O’Keeffe Pictures,” New York Times, February 9, 1930.

  “My little capital”: AS to Arthur Dove, May 8, 1931, Whelan, Alfred Stieglitz, p. 525.

  “Her face, unadorned”: Quotes from the debate (through “bad artists”) are in Gladys Oaks, “Radical Writer and Woman Artist Clash on Propaganda and Its Uses,” New York World, March 16, 1930; Lisle, pp. 237–39.

  “I have made three paintings”: RSS to Mabel Dodge Luhan, January 5, 1930, MDL/YCAL.

  “I couldn’t decide”: GOK to Dorothy Brett, April 1930, MFO, p. 526.

  “You must paint”: Marsden Hartley to RSS [June 1930], RSJ/YCAL.

  “May the summer”: AS to RSS, June 24, 1930, ASA/YCAL.

  “You must not set”: AS to GOK, July 13, 1930, MFO, p. 543.

  “so beautiful”: GOK to Dorothy Brett, October 12[?], 1930, ASA/YCAL.

  “Strand likes it much”: GOK to AS, July 29, 1930, MFO, p. 546.

  “I hate the back”: GOK to AS, July 9, 1930, MFO, p. 541.

  “in the quick seizure”: PS, quoted in Steve Yates, “The Transition Years, New Mexico,” in Stange, ed., p. 96.

  “The only thing”: PS to AS, August 27, 1930, ASA/YCAL.

  “Beck has done some”: PS to Kurt and Isabel Baasch, September 12, 1930, CCP.

  “I hope you are”: AS to RSS, August 3, 1930, ASA/YCAL.

  “as little as possible”: GOK to AS, August 3, 1930, MFO, p. 548.

  “Whenever I come back”: GOK to RSS, September 4, 1930, RSJ/YCAL.

  “The vision ahead”: GOK to Dorothy Brett, October 12[?], 1930, Cowart and Hamilton, p. 201.

  “I cannot resist”: PS to AS, August 24, 1930, ASA/YCAL.

  “I can not tell you”: RSS to AS, October 19, 1930, ASA/YCAL.

  “itching to be”: AS to RSS, October 21, 1930, ASA/YCAL.

  “Back from her second”: Edward Alden Jewell, “Museum of French Art,” New York Times, January 25, 1931.

  “with a fervor”: ibid. The review was illustrated with both artists’ paintings of slave masters whipping African slaves.

  “You are preoccupied”: Norman to GOK, February 13, 1931, ASA/YCAL; Drohojowska-Philp, p. 327. O’Keeffe did not reply to Norman.

  “One is easy with her”: Clurman letter in Norman, Encounters, p. 99.

  “To have a complete”: Norman, Encounters, pp. 71–72.

  “Any young woman”: Norman, quoted in Drohojowska-Philp, p. 286.

  “Strand’s and Stieglitz’s prints”: Norman, Encounters, pp. 102–3.

  “You owe it”: AS to GOK, May 25, 1931, MFO, p. 568.

  “There is something about”: GOK to AS, May 1, 1931, MFO, p. 558.

  “Wall Street is frightful”: AS to GOK, June 2, 1931, MFO, p. 572.

  “so Paul & all others”: AS to RSS, March 18, 1931, ASA/YCAL.

  “You will find in it”: RSS to AS, April 8, 1931, ASA/YCAL.

  “If nothing comes”: PS to AS, June 18, 1931, ASA/YCAL.

  “You would not have written”: AS, quoted in Clurman, p. 58.

  “I remember you”: Clurman to PS, c. 1934, CCP; Yates, “The Transition Years,” in Stange, ed., p. 90.

  “Stieglitz’s photograph”: Clurman, pp. 267–68.

  “I think I am”: PS to Herbert Seligmann, July 29, 1931, ASA/YCAL Greenough, Paul Strand, unpaginated (opposite plate 77).

  “The days slip by”: PS to AS, August 22, 1931, ASA/YCAL.

  “I seem to be hunting”: GOK to AS, May 30, 1929, MFO, p. 430.

  “this very sober”: Dorothea Lange, “The Making of a Documentary Photographer,” interview conducted by Suzanne Riess, oral history transcript, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 1968, pp. 138–39.

  “the people who lived there”: PS interview with Milton Brown and Walter Rosenblum, 1971, in Busselle, p. 97.

  “a curious kind”: GOK to McBride, July 1931, Cowart and Hamilton, pp. 202–3.

  “‘Wonderful’ was a word”: Mabel Dodge Luhan, “Georgia O’Keeffe in Taos,” Creative Arts, June 1931, pp. 407–10.

  “It hurt Strand mightily”: GOK to AS, June 28, 1931, MFO, p. 587.

  “They sat there”: Frieda Lawrence, quoted in Pollitzer, pp. 201–2.

  “Beck is reveling”: AS to GOK, June 27, 1931, MFO, pp. 586–87.

  “utterly one”: Norman to AS, July 2, 1931, ASA/YCAL; MFO, p. 591.

  “the problem between”: RSS to PS, June 11, 1931, CCP. See also RSS to PS, June 15, 1931, CCP.

  “a good combination”: AS to GOK, July 9, 10, 1931, MFO, pp. 593–94.

  “I am feeling a bit disgruntled”: GOK to Russell Vernon Hunter [August 1931], ASA/YCAL.

  “In spite of our ‘failures’ ”: AS to GOK, August 26, 1931, MFO, pp. 597–98.

  “I sometimes wonder”: GOK to RSS, August 9, 1931, RSJ/YCAL.

  “I feel perfect”: GOK to RSS [September 1931], RSJ/YCAL.

  CHAPTER 16: DIVIDED SELVES

  “the best ever”: RSS to AS, October 6, 1931, ASA/YCAL.

  “The house is full”: AS to RSS, August 2, 1931, ASA/YCAL.

  “but they do not actually”: AS to GOK, October 18, 1931, MFO, p. 602. AS remarks on their “fluffing” in a number of letters to GOK that fall.

  “I have been photographing”: AS to Herbert Seligmann, October 6, 1931, ASA/YCAL.

  “It’ll be funny”: AS to RSS, October 1, 1931, ASA/YCAL.

  “appalled by the force”: Levy, pp. 50–51.

  “many funny things”: GOK to AS, October 20, 1931, MFO, p. 604.

  “I thought of the city men”: GOK, Georgia O’Keeffe, unpaginated.

  “m
akes me laugh”: GOK to AS, November 6, 1931, MFO, p. 613.

  “I really don’t know”: GOK to AS, November 25, 1931, MFO, p. 618.

  “As well as death”: Robinson, p. 367.

  “her country”: GOK, quoted in Levy, p. 54.

  “This is probably”: Edwin Alden Jewell, “Synthetic View on Photography,” New York Times, November 3, 1931.

  some biographers say that Dorothy was naked: See accounts by Lowe, Whelan, and Drohojowska-Philp.

  “Talking in this way”: GOK to AS, October 24, 1931, MFO, p. 607.

  “fluffed beautifully”: AS to GOK, October 24, 1931, MFO, p. 605.

  “at the average value”: AS to PS, December 1, 1931, CCP.

  “to breathe a bit of life”: AS to PS, December 13, 1931, CCP.

  “I think his show”: GOK to Russell Vernon Hunter [January 1932], Cowart and Hamilton, pp. 204–5.

  “I imagine that she saw”: Henry McBride, “Skeletons on the Plain,” New York Sun, January 1, 1932.

  “a new way of trying”: GOK to Russell Vernon Hunter [January 1932], Cowart and Hamilton, p. 205.

  “memory or dream thing”: GOK to Dorothy Brett [mid-February 1932], Cowart and Hamilton, p. 208.

  “I hope Taos”: AS to RSS, February 6, 1932, ASA/YCAL.

  “visualizations, as Mr. Stieglitz”: Edwin Alden Jewell, “Stieglitz—Master of the Lens,” New York Times, February 17, 1932.

  a different vision of the feminine: Following a visit to the Place the poet Lola Ridge wrote, “I note Georgia O’Keeffe’s cold rather beautiful face, but find something in it I reject….I’d rather have Rebecca Strand’s simple wistful seeking face. It is still in the process of what Spengler would call ‘be coming.’ G. OK’s has become.” (Ridge to David Lawson, February 16, 1932, private communication to the author from Terese Svoboda).

  “If speculations about Alfred”: Lowe, p. 317.

  “The place is the most beautiful”: GOK to Dorothy Brett [mid-February 1932], Cowart and Hamilton, p. 206.

  “Showing or not showing”: ibid.

  “saddled with a large stock”: James, Allow Me to Present, pp. 34–35.

  “hardy pioneer ancestors”: ibid.

  “unflinching integrity”: Elizabeth McCausland, “Paul Strand’s Photographs Show Medium’s Possibilities,” Springfield Sunday Union and Republic, April 17, 1932.