My Faraway One

More about the book

Few couples in 20th-century American art and culture are as significant as Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. From 1915 to 1946, they exchanged over 5,000 letters (more than 25,000 pages) detailing their lives. This volume presents around 650 carefully selected and annotated letters by photography scholar Sarah Greenough. The correspondence captures their initial romance in the 1910s, their life together in the 1920s, the strain on their relationship during the early Depression years, and its revival in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Their distinct writing styles—O'Keeffe's sparse vibrancy and Stieglitz's fervent lyricism—offer insights into their creative evolution and friendships with influential figures in early American modernism, such as Charles Demuth, Arthur Dove, and Paul Strand. The letters also highlight their interactions with key personalities in American and European art and culture, including Duncan Phillips, Diego Rivera, and Marcel Duchamp. Additionally, their poignant prose reflects the broader cultural influences of World Wars I and II, the 1920s economic boom, and the 1930s Depression on their lives as articulate, creative individuals.