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Talk:Hawaii series by Georgia O'Keeffe

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Issues and errata

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  • While it is well established that "two of the paintings from this commission, Crab's Claw Ginger Hawaii and Pineapple Bud, were used in advertisements that appeared in popular American magazines in 1940" for Dole pineapple juice, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, writes "Despite her efforts to provide Dole with appropriate works, the corporation never chose to use O'Keeffe's paintings in their ad campaigns for reasons that remain unclear".[1] This is a very confusing statement. What does the MFABoston mean by this statement? Thinking about it further, my guess is that the MFABoston meant to write instead "Dole never used the paintings of Fishhooks in their ad campaigns". That specific statement makes perfect sense, since MFABoston hosts the painting Fishhook from Hawaii, No. 2, but the general statement that says "the corporation never chose to use O'Keeffe's paintings in their ad campaigns" is quite clearly wrong and ambiguous. This should probably be corrected by MFABoston. Viriditas (talk) 01:08, 10 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Not sure anything is actionable here. Will revisit in future. Viriditas (talk) 01:51, 6 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Messinger's choice of Bella Donna as the best painting in the series seems unusually odd, considering all the other works. Further, her comments indicating the series isn't important is also slightly odd, but has a bit more merit for several reasons. One wonders how to handle this given all of the other opinions available in the three subsequent exhibitions since Messinger originally wrote her appraisal, but I will attempt to represent them in proportion to their importance. This is an interesting example of an opinion of one art historian influencing future opinion (her opinion about the series is still cited) while new opinions about the series arise. Viriditas (talk) 23:58, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Drohojowska-Philp writes that the circular fishhooks paintings in the Hawaii series represent a surrealist technique which emerged as "O'Keeffe's initial use of a circular device to frame the distant dimension of clear sky", which in turn was followed by other famous works making use of the same technique, such as pelvis bones, doors, windows, etc, particularly after 1940. While this makes some kind of sense, I find it very odd, considering that At the Rodeo was painted in 1929, using a similar idea. Another odd thing, is that I seem to be the only person who thinks At the Rodeo resembles a peyote flower, and makes use of the famous psychedelic color palette popularized by Huichol art, whose colors are said to derive from the practice of ingesting peyote, which heightens the perception of these shades as a result of the experience, leading to Huichol artists using this specific color palette. Viriditas (talk) 22:15, 20 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Saville 1990 partially addressed this from a different POV. Currently working on resolving this. Viriditas (talk) 01:50, 6 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Art historian Katherine Hoffman argues that the economic reality of the Great Depression (1929–1939) led O'Keeffe to take commercial art opportunities to earn additional income". This is disputed by Saville. Viriditas (talk) 02:38, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I removed it. Multiple source say otherwise. O'Keeffe had lots of money at this point. I think it’s possible that Hoffman got some things wrong. Viriditas (talk) 01:52, 6 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note on images of paintings

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At least one person on Commons is arguing that the paintings are in the public domain, but I find this argument to be unusual. O'Keeffe was fiercely protective of her work and would not have allowed her paintings to have lapsed into the public domain. The argument on commons is that a copyright renewal has not been made, so either some or all of the works in this series are now in the public domain. I find that impossible to believe given the history of the work, so I have not uploaded the paintings. One person has, but I've disputed the upload on the site and I have not included it here. Viriditas (talk) 21:02, 20 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]