All-School Trip to Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern

O’Keeffe was a member of the Chatham Hall class of 1905 when the school was known as the Chatham Episcopal Institute. The Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern show is traveling nationally, having started at the Brooklyn Museum in New York and Reynolda House Museum of American Art is the only southern venue for the exhibition. Chatham Hall lent several archival items, including O’Keeffe’s yearbook, to the show.  

Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern follows O’Keeffe’s life from a young girl in Wisconsin to a pioneer of modernism and a style icon living in the New Mexico desert and examines the artist’s self-crafted persona through her art, her dress, and her progressive, independent lifestyle. The exhibition includes more than 180 paintings, photographs, sculptures and personal objects (including jewelry, accessories, and garments from her wardrobe, some designed and made by the artist herself).

The museum created a special day of programming for our student body, including tours of the show, time in an art studio to try their hand at O’Keeffe inspired pastels, screenings of the PBS American Masters documentary on the artist, and a session on college prep with Wake Forest University’s Associate Dean of Admissions, Kevin Pittard. Georgia O’Keeffe has been a major topic on campus this fall, prior to the Reynolda House visit, the student body attended a lecture on O’Keeffe’s time at Chatham Hall presented by the school’s archivist, Dr. William Black and school literary magazine, The Iris is running a contest for student-created art made in response to the visit to the Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern show.

Following the student trip, Chatham Hall held an evening event for alumnae, parents, and friends of the school to tour the show and celebrate all things O'Keeffe; the well-attended event drew more than 100 attendees from the extended Chatham Hall community. Georgia O’Keeffe: Living modern runs until November 19th at Reynolda House Museum of American Art, more information can be found here.