Abstraction, landscape, but no vaginas, thanks: Tate Modern's Georgia O'Keeffe retrospective

Best known for her flower paintings, and let’s face it, their resemblance to vaginas, Georgia O’Keeffe’s work and the mythic qualities its creator has garnered over the years have made her one of the most famous painters of the 20th Century.

Touted as a founding figure of American modernism, O’Keeffe’s career was a long and fruitful one, and now a new Tate Modern retrospective presents pieces from six decades of her practice, from her earliest “mature” works in 1916 up until 1963. Alongside the flowers, there are her nearly-as-famous works from New Mexico, the place she felt most at home, and numerous fascinating abstract compositions.

The show presents a total of 221 objects, including more than 100 of O’Keeffe’s major works, as well as publications, sketchbooks and photographs of the artist, including many by photographer and art promoter Alfred Stieglitz, who O’Keeffe married in 1924.

Throughout the show, O’Keeffe’s interest in the modernist photography practiced by Stieglitz and her other peers is palpable in the colours and compositions of her work. It’s perhaps most evident in the series of works that use bones and skeletal features as framing devices for the bright azure skies of New Mexico.

Arranged chronologically, the show superbly delineates O’Keeffe’s development over a long and prolific career, from abstract early charcoal works to still lifes and landscapes. Her later works are striking and a lesser-known treat: during the 1960s, her experiences of air travel proved a revelation for the artist, and the hazy images depicting the clouds from above are beautiful. Elsewhere, it’s the hot landscapes of the wild west that preoccupy O’Keeffe, peppered with skulls and adobe architecture; but with every image taking the feelings these places and objects evoke, rather than their physicality as their starting points.

The gallery is keen to state that there are currently no O’Keeffe works in UK public collections, making such an expansive retrospective a rare treat for European audiences. They’re also keen to, as they put it, “dispel the clichés that persist about the artist and her painting.” Tate is beating about the bush somewhat: their intention is to show there’s more to O’Keeffe than her work’s vaginal likenesses. The artist, too, stated that her works were simply abstract representations rather than implying any connotations to the female form, yet that myth has surely persisted for a reason: her myth is built around these ideas, and they enforce her stature as a vital female force in a male-dominated modernist art world. Without those, it’s easy to get a little lost and parched in her beloved natural scenes.

Georgia O’Keeffe is at Tate Modern from 6 July – 30 October