Many Ways of Seeing : Georgia O'Keeffe, Fisk University and the Alfred Stieglitz Collection

The photographer Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946) helped to promote and define modern art in the United States, in close connection with issues of race and education. In November 1949, his wife, the painter Georgia O’Keeffe, donated 101 works of art from her husband’s collection to Fisk University, a historically Black university in Nashville: works by Picasso and Cézanne, African masks and works by modern American artists from her circle. The impact of this donation extends far beyond the artist couple, involving decades of Fisk students and staff, including the artists Aaron Douglas and David C. Driskell.  

Produced in collaboration between Fisk University and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, joint owners of the collection since 2012, this book is the first publication to trace and analyse the complex history of a collection that has long fascinated the American art world without ever having been properly examined.  Among the collection’s highlights are 19th-century African masks and iconic paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe, Marsden Hartley and Florine Stettheimer.