Paul Strand and Charles Sheeler Manhatta 1921, film still. Courtesy Light Cone
Paul Strand and Charles Sheeler Manhatta 1921, film still. Courtesy Light Cone
Paul Strand and Charles Sheeler Manhatta 1921, film still. Courtesy Light Cone
Paul Strand and Charles Sheeler Manhatta 1921, film still. Courtesy Light Cone
Event Programme
Georgia O’Keeffe, Perry Miller Adato, USA 1977, colour, sound, 60 min
Originally created in celebration of O’Keeffe’s 90th birthday, Miller Adato’s film is the only filmic portrait the artist allowed to be made. Co-operating to an uncharacteristic degree, O’Keeffe provided the filmmaker with rare home movie footage and spoke frankly about her work, her life with photographer Alfred Stieglitz and her role as the only woman in Stieglitz’s famed inner circle of modern American artists. Shot on location in New Mexico, the film shows the then 88-year-old painter in her studio, in the landscape surrounding her home at Ghost Ranch and in her house at Abiquiú.
Manhatta, Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand, USA 1921, 16mm, black and white, silent, 9 min
American painter Charles Sheeler and photographer Paul Strand’s now-iconic city film captures the New York of O’Keeffe’s generation. Celebrated as one of the first American avant-garde films, Manhatta consists of a series of strikingly composed shots of the city over the course of a day. The film was conceived as a filmic analogue to Walt Whitman’s poem “Mannahatta” and marked the beginning of Paul Strand’s cinematic work. Shot shortly after her move to the city in 1918, the film reveals many of the sites O’Keeffe later painted in the period from 1925 to 1930.
Programme duration: 69 min
The Sunday 31 July screening is introduced by Tanya Barson, Curator of the Georgia O’Keeffe exhibition.
The Sunday 4 September screening is introduced by Hannah Johnston, Assistant Curator of the Georgia O’Keeffe exhibition.