Georgia O'Keeffe

Executed in 1927, Line and Curve is the last in a group of four highly abstract, predominantly white, narrow vertical compositions whose imagery can be traced in part to Georgia O’Keeffe’s interest in Manhattan’s modern architecture. As its title indicates, Line and Curve consists of a simple juxtaposition of a vertical line running down the center of the canvas intersected by a sweeping curve that extends through the upper right quadrant of the composition. The painting verges on pure abstraction while combining architectonic elements with hints of more natural, curving, organic forms. The mottled, gently undulating, white paint surface with evanescent violet hues and the shading of the vertical line suggest the shallow spatial recessions of New York’s crowded spaces. The gray-white palette evokes a cloudy sky.

During the mid-1920s, O’Keeffe and her husband, Alfred Stieglitz, lived on the 30th floor of the newly opened Shelton Hotel on Lexington Avenue at 49th Street in New York City. This location inspired O’Keeffe to paint birds-eye views of the East River as well as street-level views of a number of the skyscrapers located in her midtown Manhattan neighborhood. O’Keeffe had first experimented with abstract forms in 1915, and the interplay between abstraction and representation would always inform her style. In 1976 she stated: “The abstraction is often the most definite form for the intangible thing in myself that I can only clarify in paint.”