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

y its two dimensional nature, in opposition to the three dimensions of sculpture.
Greenberg found the flatness of paint on a rectangular canvas the principal characteristic
of painting, and thus the area of competence of that art.
Harrison’s third definition of modernism looks at the social functioning of
modernism within the art world. “A modernist . . .” in these terms, says Harrison, “is
seen not primarily as a kind of artist, but rather as a critic whose judgments reflect a
specific set of ideas and beliefs about art and its development.” Greenberg was this kind
of modernist. Among the other critics Harrison lists as practicing modernist criticism are
Stieglitz’s British contemporaries Clive Bell and Roger Fry. 41
At the time O’Keeffe first began working in a modernist mode, before she formed
more independent ideas, she found much of her inspiration and guidance in exhibitions
held at 291 and articles in Camera Work and 291. Stieglitz and his cohorts at 291 were,
therefore, her ideal modernists when she began making modernist works on paper. What
kind of modernist was Stieglitz and what kind of modernist models did he and those in
his circle offer to O’Keeffe? Certainly, he can easily be seen as the kind of modernist
practitioner who fits into Harrison’s third definition of modernism. Stieglitz was, in the
New York of the teens, the eminent authority who decided which art and artists would be
seen as modernist. In 1916 the witty critic Henry McBride wrote, for example, of
paintings by Marsden Hartley shown by Stieglitz, “These works are all terrifically
modern, of course, else they would not be shown at the Photo-Secession.” 42
A critic
writing for the Christian Science Monitor in 1917 defined “modern art” as “the most
recent expressions of painting, such as impressionism, cubism and futurism.” He
asserted that in New York “the true protagonist and by far the most influential ex-officio
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