East River, No. 3

Date1926

Artist Georgia O'Keeffe (American, 1887-1986)

CultureAmerican

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsUnframed: 11 13/16 x 32 5/16 in. (30 x 82 cm)
Inner Frame: 13 x 32 15/16 x 1 3/16 in. (33 x 83.6 x 3 cm)
Overall: 15 13/16 x 35 3/4 x 3 1/8 in. (40.2 x 90.8 x 7.9 cm)

Credit LineBequest of Mrs. Arthur Schwab (Edna Bryner, class of 1907)

Period20th c

Classification(s)

Painting

Inscribednone noted

Catalogue raisonnéBuhler Lynes, No. 533BibliographyBarson, Tanya. Georgia O'Keefe. London: Tate Publishing, 2016; Lynes, Barbara Buhler. Georgia O’Keeffe: Catalogue Raisonné Volume One. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999, p. 301 Modern Metropolis. Poughkeepsie: Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, 2002, p. 3; Mundy, James. The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center: Vassar College The History and Collection. New York: Prestel Publishing, 2007, p. 101; O’Keeffe, Georgia. Georgia O’Keeffe: An Exhibition of Oils, Watercolors and Drawings, September 9 - October 19, 1980 / Presented by the Nebraska Art Association at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery. Lincoln: The Association, 1980, cat. 23; Reid, Joan Elisabeth. Why Paint America? : Artists Probe a Nation’s Identity : Vassar College Art Gallery, January 22 - March 7, 1980. Poughkeepsie, N.Y: The Gallery, 1980, cat. 9, p. 6; Schwartz, Constance. Nevelson and O’Keeffe: Independents of the Twentieth Century, Nassau County Museum of Fine Art. Roslyn Harbor, N.Y: The Museum, 1983., cat. 26; Oehler, Sarah Kelly and Annelise K. Madsen. Georgia O'Keeffe: "My New Yorks," Chicago, IL: The Art Institite of Chicago, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2024, p. 165 ProvenanceThe Intimate Gallery, New York;
purchased by Edna Bryner Schwab, 1927

Vassar Exhibitions

Modern Metropolis

Twentieth-Century American Women Artists from the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College

Work and Workers in America 1900-40

Exhibition HistoryForty New Paintings by Georgia O'Keeffe, The Intimate Gallery, New York, NY, January 11 - February 27, 1927;

Georgia O'Keeffe, The Intimate Gallery, New York City, NY, 1928;

The Stiglitz Circle: Bluemner, Dove, Hartley, Marin, Maurer, O'Keeffe, Weber, Vassar College Art Gallery, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY, December 2 - December 20, 1972;

Four MacDowell Medalists: Hopper, O'Keeffe, Calder and Nevelson, The Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, NH, June 30 - July 29, 1973; Thorne Art Gallery, Keene, NH, August 3 - September 9, 1973;

Why Paint America: Artists Probe a Nation's Identity, Vassar College Art Gallery, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY, January 22 - March 7, 1980;

Paintings and Drawings by Georgia O'Keeffe, Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, The University of Nebraska-Lincoln, September 9 - October 19, 1980;

Geometric Art at Vassar, Vassar College Art Gallery, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY, November 1, 1982 - February 6, 1983;

Nevelson and O'Keeffe: Independents of the Twentieth Century, Nassau County Museum of Fine Art, Roslyn, NY, January 30 - April 10, 1983;

Long Island Landscapes: The Twentieth Century, Heckscher Museums, Huntington, NY, June 30 - August 26, 1990;

Extended Loan to The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, December 1990 - December 1993;

NYNY: City of Ambition, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, July 3 - October 27, 1996;

Der kuhle Blick-Reaismus der zwanziger Jahre, Kunsthalle der Hypo Kulturstiftung, Munich, Germany, June 1, 2001-September 2, 2001;

Modern Metropolis, Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY, April 5 - June 16, 2002;

Twentieth Century American Women Artists, Park Avenue Bank, New York, NY, September 18 - November 2, 2007;

Georgia O'Keeffe, Tate Modern, London, England, July 6 - October 30, 2016;

Georgia O'Keeffe: "My New Yorks," The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, June 2, 2024 - Feburary 16, 2025

Label TextGeorgia O’Keeffe painted a series of over a dozen views of the East River from the rooms she shared with her husband, Alfred Stieglitz, on the thirteenth, and subsequently other floors, of the Shelton Hotel from 1925 until 1936. They depart greatly from her more familiar images of flowers and trees and, instead, present the geometry of an urban environment in various moods. They are also more representational than the works of the preceding decade, largely in response to the extreme Freudian interpretation to which her work had been subjected. The painting was first exhibited at Stieglitz’s Intimate Gallery located in room 303 of the Anderson Gallery building in 1927 as part of an exhibition of forty recent paintings by the artist. This gallery was the successor to his defunct 291 Gallery and a precursor to An American Place. It was there that Edna Bryner Schwab likely purchased the work. Mrs. Schwab was a devoted client of Stieglitz’s and it was her role as executrix of the Paul Rosenfeld estate, and her own bequest, that brought to Vassar its superb collection of the American Modernists launched by Stieglitz’s efforts.

DescriptionDepiction of the East River, as viewed from Manhattan, looking towards Brooklyn. The scene is composed of simplified tiered buildings in the foreground and with smoke stacks and billowing smoke from the buildings across the distance. The work is rendered in monochromatic, yet contrasting shades of grey.

Terms

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email loebcollections@vassar.edu