ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation / Thesis: “LIVING ON PAPER ...

Marsden Hartley, Abraham Walkowitz, and John Marin. 7
O’Keeffe would not have
wanted to miss such an important event and she did not. The Forum Exhibition catalogue
is still in her library. 8
O’Keeffe was pleased finally to see in person the art of Arthur
Dove that she had previously known only through reproductions, 9 and now she also
became familiar with a broader range of the young Americans who showed with Stieglitz.
The reviewer for the New York Times mentioned that the artists shown submitted five
drawings each to demonstrate to “the public that the painters represented are capable of
drawing objects in a recognizable manner if they choose.” 10
Paintings, however,
dominated the exhibition and many demanded attention with saturated primary and
secondary colors.
O’Keeffe also attended a Marsden Hartley show that was probably the first she
had seen at 291 made up entirely of oil paintings (Figs. 4.2, 4.21). 11
At 291, as at the
Forum Exhibition, color and pattern assaulted O’Keeffe’s senses. It was a startling
contrast to the smaller, often black and white, graphic works she had previously seen in
the little gallery. “In 1916,” she recalled, “I went in alone to see the Hartley show. It
was his war pictures and was like a brass band in a small closet. . . . Stieglitz got out
some of Hartley’s fall paintings from Maine that were quite different. There was a dark
one I liked very much – he handed it to me and said, ‘Take it home with you if you wish.
If you get tired of it, bring it back.’” 12
She wasn’t happy with the painting on her wall for
more than a few days, 13 but the medium of oil painting had undeniably found a place in
her experience of modernism. O’Keeffe’s conception of avant-garde art was expanding
beyond her previous understanding based upon monochrome graphic media. She had
now seen first-hand how important American modernists employed color abstractly in
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