Embodied Art – 4 – The Marriage

Alfred handled a sheet of paper as if it was a butterfly’s wing.
—Georgia O’Keeffe¹A Woman on Paper, by Anita Pollitzer,Touchstone 1988. p. 168

Through the years she was corresponding with Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O’Keeffe became included in a community or rather his community of photographers, writers and painters, many of whom were young US artists whose career he was promoting and supporting. Stieglitz was the supreme patriarch of the circle, whose members knew and cared about each other on many levels.

One of the photographers, Poul Strand, was personally attracted to Georgia. As artists the two had a lot in common and much to share. His Mercury — which was part of a grand trine including the Neptune-Pluto conjunction as well as Jupiter in his birth chart — was conjunct her Venus, and his photographs, whose close-up focus on details turned them into abstract artworks, inspired Georgia’s paintings.

The two were so connected inside that she, when watching a motif, would imagine how Strand would photograph it. Although mutually attracted and full of warm feelings for him, she did, however, not accept his invitation to closer intimacy. She was, as we know, involved emotionally with Arthur MacMahon, there was a third suitor in Texas who wanted to be involved with her, and then there was her correspondence with Stieglitz…

In 1918 Georgia O’Keeffe became seriously ill by influenza. She had a hard time recovering, and she was granted a leave of absence from the school in Texas where she had been teaching art and also was head of the art department.

Although her contribution was succesful, part of the small community had disapproved of a friendship she had established with a young man — one of her students. They had liked to take long walks on the open plains, they were both fascinated by nature, and they would go out in all kinds of weather and at all hours of the day or night.

One day a delegation of women had paid the young man a visit to let him know that he would be denied his diploma, if he kept seeing Georgia O’Keeffe. The young man was so intimidated that he stopped seeing her right away and without a word. He had been afraid she would make a protest, had she known of the visit from the delegation.

As she was recovering from her illness, Georgia was invited to stay on a farm with a woman friend who was chronically ill. At the farm, there had been an incident with a nightly intruder who had been spying on the women with his torch through the windows. It turned out that the intruder was a neighbour who later regretted his behaviour.

Alfred Stieglitz and Poul Strand were both concerned about Georgia, and they agreed that the best thing they could offer her at that moment, would be an invitation to come to New York. Paul Strand were to go to Texas and convince her of their idea. He went and returned to New York with Georgia in the summer of 1918.

Stieglitz had provided a place for her to stay. She was all but well when she arrived, and he would visit her every day to take care of her basic needs. After a while he had asked her what she would mostly prefer as for the next step in her life, and she said that she wished to be able to concentrate on painting for a full year.

He answered that this was a possibility, and that he would help her wish come true. Their relationship grew intimate, he began photographing her; and when his wife, Emmy — after realising what was happening — gave him an ultimatum, he chose to leave her after twenty-four years of marriage. They had a daughter about 20 years old.

Georgia resigned from her commitment in Texas, and the two were now living together. With a passionate and caring eye for her unique being, for her beauty, and not least for her expressive hands, Alfred Stieglitz started creating a large collection of photos of her — with and without clothes — and often in setups with one of her artworks. 

As mentioned earlier, the birth of psychoanalysis coincided with the Neptune-Pluto conjunction, and the Uranus-opposite Pluto and also Neptune at the turn of the 20^th century. Freudianism and depth psychology was in the air of the 1920’s, and her husband’s photos contributed to the fact that O’Keeffe’s flower paintings were readily interpreted — not least by Alfred Stieglitz — through a psychoanalytic lens, indicating they were symbols of feminine sexuality.

Georgia O’Keeffe’s response to this was: “When people read erotic symbols into my paintings, they are really talking about their own affairs”²See the article: Tate Modern, London 6 July – 30 October 2016 by ANNA McNAY.

Mercury symbolizing communication, movement, and is associated with the hands, was part of her big stellium and was forming an exact opposition to Neptune in her chart; and with the Pluto-Neptune conjunction the expression of her hands would be further empowered — both in the sense of what they were able to perform and of their outer expression: ‘… the strong white hands touching and lifting everything, even the boiled eggs, as if they were living things— sensitive, slow-moving hands’.³From Dorothy Brett; “My Beautiful Journey,” South Dakota Review, Summer 1967. Quoted in Georgia O’Keeffe: A Life, by Roxana Robinson(1990). Kindle edition p. 324

Anita Pollitzer wrote about Alfred Stieglitz’s photos: “… we are indebted for some of the most sensitive photographs of a woman’s body ever made.” (…) “Stieglitz had had the idea for some time, long before he knew Georgia, of doing a series of photographs on woman — not woman stylishly gowned or languorously draped — but woman.”⁴From A Woman on Paper, 1988, p.168

“Georgia had profound respect for his work and what he was achieving through it.
‘I felt somehow that the photographs had nothing to do with me personally,’ she said.”⁵Ibid. See previous note.

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Connected in Scorpio and Libra

Their birth charts reveal a strong connection in the sign of Scorpio. His part was a Venus-Jupiter conjunction, and this aligned closely with her Sun-Moon conjunction, enriching her stellium with great love. Jupiter enlarges everything it touches.

Alfred Stieglitz 1. January 1864 – Noon Chart Hoboken, New Jersey, USA

Georgia O’Keeffe 15. November 1887 – 6.30 a.m. Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, USA

His Venus was conjunct his North Node too, indicating that his soul’s direction in this lifetime would point towards love of art (or vice versa) and high culture (Jupiter). Her chart would expand this tremendously with her Sun, Moon and Jupiter pouring her heart, soul and wide horizons into the melting pot. They could expand into one another so to speak.

Furthermore his Neptune was opposite her Venus in Libra and opposite his Moon — an aspect he shared with Georgia. His Moon — depending on his exact time of birth, which is not recorded, could then be conjunct her Venus too. A Venus-Moon conjunction across two charts speaks about deep emotional love-bonds between souls, perhaps parent-child relationships in other incarnations; and the two were considered soulmates throughout their long life together.

They became each other’s muse, and she was also said to having become the twin he had been longing for since childhood where he had witnessed the closeness of his younger twin-siblings.

Moon and Saturn were close in his chart and — still depending on his time of birth — a conjunction was a probability. He was 23 years her senior, which by itself could indicate a Moon-Saturn contact that can give a propensity for choosing either much younger or older partners. His first wife was 9 years his junior.

Saturn in his chart was conjunct Uranus in Georgia’s chart, so her Venus-Uranus conjunction would challenge his Moon and Saturn with her need for freedom and space versus his need for physical closeness and tradition.

They married on December 11^th 1924 on a Full Moon Thursday with the Sun conjunct Jupiter trining Neptune and Chiron. Sextiles from Chiron and Neptune to the Moon extended the trine into a dragon — the so-called Kite formation with the Moon as its focal point. Such a formation tends to occur in birth charts of visionary people. Additionally there was a second grand trine between Uranus-conjunct-Mars, Pluto, and Venus-conjunct-Saturn.

The Saturn-Venus conjunction was in Scorpio and transiting the Venus-Jupiter conjunction in his chart and the Jupiter-Ascendant conjunction in her chart. A Soul contract seemed to be manifested.

Mercury was in a close opposition to Pluto and sextile to Saturn — a promise of intense and steady communication. When they were apart, they would write letters to each other, at times as long as 40 pages and up to three letters per day.

It was indeed a day with powerful constellations in the heavens pointing at the collective destiny of their marriage and the possibility of great harmony as well as challenges. All the personal planets were closely aspected to either social or transpersonal planets, indicating that their relationship would play a prominent part in the collective evolution.

Perhaps they didn’t notice much of this on that day, however, nor did they make much of the wedding itself. No party or celebrations of any kind. It was said that they chose to marry to please Alfred’s daughter, Kitty, who had been very upset by the presence of Georgia in her father’s life.

The main artery in their relationship was their joint creativity, and this was a bond that was extremely powerful. Art critic, Barbara Rose, said: ‘When Stieglitz married O’Keeffe, he not only married a woman, he married America (…) she was the essence of another culture’.⁶Interview with Barbara Rose from the documentary: Georgia O’Keeffe, written and directed by Perry Miller Adato.

One could add, I believe, that their marriage was also between the arts of painting and photography, as they started living together in the aftermath of the Neptune-Uranus opposition which was operative from 1899-1918. Neptune symbolising the fine art of painting, and Uranus the new and innovative technology that had made it possible to create art with a ‘machine’.

When Georgia O’Keeffe was asked by the documentarian Perry Miller Adato, what it was that made their marriage work so well for so long, she answered:

‘I was interested in what he did, and he was interested in what I did — very interested.’ ⁷Ibid. See previous note.

To be continued…