Georgia O'Keeffe Page #3

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An artist doesn't work for money.

He works for pleasure.

I never took any commission at the gallery.

Not a penny.

Picasso, Braque, Rodin,

showed them all for nothing.

Even you, Miss O'Keeffe.

So, in other words,

we don't have any money.

Well, we have money,

it's just we're a little short at the moment.

Well, when things got bad at the farm,

there was always one solution.

- And what was that?

- Have a baby.

- Yeah. Perfect logic.

- I'm serious.

What about?

Having a baby.

No. I'm too old for that. I have a family.

Well, I had a family.

I did it once, and I did it badly.

Anyhow, what would happen to your work

with a screaming child running about...

...using up your time and your attention?

- Alfred, people have children all the time.

- We don't need a child.

- It's not a question of need.

- You're my child...

...and I'm yours.

You're my family, my all, my everything.

Let's just be thankful for that, all right?

- Well, it might be a good thing.

- Why are you going on about this?

- I'm only expressing my opinion.

- No, you're not! You're defying me!

You're denying me the rightness

of what I'm saying!

- Do not do that! Do not do that!

- Alfred! Why are you so upset?

Is it... Is it...

Are you upset about having a child.

...or that I'm expressing my own opinion?

Can't I express my own opinion?

Listen. You are here in this studio,

on this earth...

...you are here to paint!

Not to breed, to paint! Paint! Paint!

I'm sorry.

It's just that I know

I can't give you everything you need.

It's just funny.

Everyone assumes you're so rich.

Not you.

I never assumed you were anything...

...except a great shining star,

and I was hitching a ride on you.

It's very warm in here.

Would you undo my collar for me?

And my shirt?

Stieglitz has brought the lens

close to the epidermis.

...to reveal O'Keeffe in her full glory.

The vagina, the pubic hair, the nipples,

the bare buttocks...

...the breasts in their voluptuous splendor.

He has dared to show us the naked female

as she has never been seen before...

...capturing the gesture

of impassioned surrender.

Alfred hates it when I'm late.

Isn't that...

- That's O'Keeffe.

- I can't recognize her.

O'Keeffe.

- You can't leave.

- You bastard.

- You bastard! How could you do that to me?

- I am making you famous.

Those pictures were my love for you,

my gift to you, not to the world.

- Don't you understand the difference?

- Are you ashamed of your body?

I am ashamed that you have undressed me

in public...

...revealed my most private parts

for every man on the street to see.

- I'm not famous. I am infamous.

- Famous, infamous, what does it matter?

Yesterday you were nobody,

but today you're somebody.

- I've made you important!

- A freak in a sideshow.

No, like a woman proud of her feelings

and her instincts, her body and her sex.

- Alfred.

- Good evening.

Emma Goldman can preach free love

and feminine power.

...till she's blue in the face, but you embody it.

You are it.

You live it and breathe it...

...and all the world can see that

in my photographs...

...a model of the female essence

that's never been seen before.

It's the truth. It's the truth.

Truth or untruth, I do not need to advertise

what I am in public.

...for all of New York to see.

No. You could have stayed down in Normal,

Texas, God help you...

...and painted your brilliant little heart out

for the rest of your days.

No one would have noticed

or taken the slightest attention of you.

Work doesn't become art until

some rich person comes along and buys it.

Then it's art.

Look.

Tomorrow, in the New York Herald,

McBride's gonna say...

"This O'Keeffe woman is a sensation.

She is one long, loud blast of sex.

"Everybody knows her name...

"and now everybody

will want to know her painting.

"She is a female American Picasso. "

- You planned this.

- Of course I did.

McBride's article was written weeks ago.

Open your eyes!

Here.

Here's Barnes and Rosenfeld and Mumford

all writing about you.

All writing what I tell them to write

about you.

Have I made a bargain with the devil?

You knew what you wanted

even before you met me.

You don't own me, Stieglitz.

No. I own the photographs...

...but the spirit of the woman inside them

is yours.

Now, come on. If I were you,

I would return to the scene of my triumph...

...and I would embrace that triumph

as if it were my own child.

A child, who, if treated properly,

will support you well into your old age.

The woman, in an instant...

...has essentially become

a newspaper personality.

This is unrelated to her talent and painting.

Everybody knows her name,

and because they know her name...

...they desire to purchase her paintings.

In this, our period of women's ascendancy,

we behold O'Keeffe's work.

...flowering forth like a manifestation

of that feminine creature we first met.

...in Stieglitz's photographs.

Her great, painful, ecstatic climaxes

makes us, at last, to know that.

when women feel strongly,

they feel through the womb.

They paint through the womb.

Her art is gloriously female.

There's no stroke laid by her brush

that is not ultimately feminine...

...is not curiously, arrestingly feminine.

The essence of the very woman

is in every stroke she makes...

...every color she chooses.

Thank you.

I do hope Alfred remembered to change

the dinner reservation.

I told him that Paul and I were joining you.

- Yes.

- I'm sure you can understand.

- Do you know who that woman is?

- She's the money. Lots of money.

Sears, Roebuck money.

To have your own input.

Georgia. This is Dorothy Norman.

Mrs. Norman is planning to invest

a substantial amount in the gallery.

I'm so in awe of Mr. Stieglitz.

I'm in awe of you, too, Miss O'Keeffe.

I've been an admirer

since your early works on paper.

If I seem a little overwhelmed...

I can't believe I'm standing in this room

with you.

I'd do anything to help. I mean it.

- I'd sweep the floor if you'd let me.

- Well, that sounds good.

Well, dinner?

Miss Norman,

it's a pleasure to see you again...

...and I hope you'll be able to come by

the gallery soon.

Very soon. Definitely.

Good night.

She won't stay long.

She does have a husband to get back to.

You'd never know it.

When she goes, so will your migraine.

I think we should thank

the generous Mr. Norman.

...for affording us the glorious opportunity

of spending this week with Mrs. Norman.

He doesn't mind. We have an understanding.

- Very modern.

- I like to think so.

One heart.

And...

...tell me, do the two of you still screw?

- Alfred. For God's sake.

- I'm sorry, Becca.

Would you prefer I used

another euphemism?

No, dear.

"Screw" is a good word, an honest word.

Two diamonds.

Yes, we do screw on occasion.

- Christmas and Easter?

- And birthdays.

Two hearts.

So, then, in the meantime, you're free

to look for love anywhere you'd like.

So to speak.

Three of diamonds.

Well, there you are, my love.

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