In the first display to place Georgia O’Keeffe and Emily Kame Kngwarreye side-by-side, the show asks us to compare the artists to ponder questions about the history of landscapes, the development of Modernism in Western and non-Western art history, and the marginalization and centering of women in art. Even considering the artists on their own terms, we are keenly aware of asking how our own cultural perspectives color our understanding of Georgia O’Keeffe and Emily Kame Kngwarreye.
While separated by several decades and by geography, both artists were deeply tied to the lands they depicted. By using landscapes as the lens to examine both artists, we can appreciate their unique visual languages, the commonalities between them, and their contributions to the histories of art. There is a growing resonance between them; both artists have recently gained institutional attention in Europe with O’Keeffe’s retrospectives at Tate Modern (2016) and Centre Pompidou (2021) and Kngwarreye’s retrospective also at Tate Modern (2025). Both painters expanded the role of women, and in Kngwarreye’s case for Aboriginal women, in a space more often afforded to men. In showing Kngwarreye with O’Keeffe, we hope to continue examining Kngwarreye at the same international status and prominence that she deserves.
The two paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe and Emily Kame Kngwarreye tell different histories of Modernism and landscapes in the 20th century. However, by bringing the works together, we can better understand each piece individually while also attaining a larger picture of art history and cultural production.
On the surface, the careers of the two artists seem at odds. O’Keeffe enjoyed a long career over many decades but created only 616 oil on canvas works. On the other hand, Kngwarreye did not start painting until 1988 when she was about 78 but in only 8 years painted nearly 3000 paintings, averaging one painting per day and matching the entire output of Monet. Nevertheless, in a more fundamental way, their legacies map onto the trajectory of art history, which in recent decades has burgeoned at the periphery. Before moving to New Mexico, O’Keeffe was at the center of the New York art scene and in her transcontinental move, helped establish a thriving art scene in the desert. Kngwarreye’s ascendancy in the international art scene followed the landmark exhibitions Magiciens de la Terre and The Other Story which opened new possibilities in the narratives of art.
It is in this juxtaposition of these two artists that we can look afresh at these towering figures and to consider their art practice as a part of something new that exists within a longer tradition. We begin to understand that Modernism in the United States and in Australia was and is always there. Modernity, in terms of art history, then fluxes between a monolithic, singular Modernism and independent, plural Modernisms.
Looking at both O’Keeffe and Kngwarreye, it becomes apparent that landscapes are embedded in a shared cultural heritage. In the case of O’Keeffe, landscapes shape our understanding of what it means to be American. For Kngwarreye, landscapes are continuation of a larger, millennia long tradition, which informed her mark-making even as she revolutionized what that mark-making could be.
This exhibition is an opportunity to see the nuances of each artist that arise by comparison while also placing them in the larger conversation of art history. Landscapes become a lens to see the intersection of abstraction, Modernism, and culture in a new way. Each artist’s unique vision and revolutionary approach to art looms larger through these cultural dialogues.
