Artwork Title: The Checkered Dress (Portrait of O’Keeffe)

The Checkered Dress (Portrait of O’Keeffe), 1907

Hilda Belcher

To pose for Hilda Belcher, who had also studied at the Art Students League of New York, O’Keeffe wore a stylish checkered dress that she most likely made for herself, in the black and white palette she would favor throughout her life. This watercolor, with its tour-de-force detailing of the dress, won Belcher membership in the male-dominated New York Water Color Club. Several years later, a female writer composed a love poem to the then unknown sitter shown in the image; it reads in part: “Could you know, did you guess/Such a daring rhythmic dress/Gleaming here, darkening there,/Would but render you more rare?” (https://designlifenetwork.com/georgia-okeeffe-living-modern-virtual-tour/)
Uploaded on Jul 8, 2017 by Suzan Hamer

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