robyn_m's review against another edition

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4.0

The focus here is narrow: the artist's own collection of her work. The book begins with an introduction by Russell Bowman, and an essay by Barbara Buhler Lynes. Nearly 100 color reproductions are then presented, in three sections (The Early Years, New York, New Mexico). Five appendices, an exhibition catalog, chronology, selected references, and index round out the book.

At the time of her death, O'Keeffe owned more than half of her 2,029 works. Works were sometimes reacquired after being previously sold. The reasons for her holding onto work, and/or keeping it from the public are varied...

+ personal importance: sentimental or representative of key moment in career
+ to maintain or increase market valuation
+ to reunite an individual work with its series
+ planned bequests
+ to curate artistic brand identity: hiding abstract, lesser quality, unfinished pieces

Page 26:
"Whether gained from a specific reading of Transcendentalist principles, her absorption of Eastern concepts, or her own deeply felt response to the world, O'Keeffe seems to have sought a oneness with nature that she symbolized by light."
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