Georgia O'Keeffe—Hands and Thimble
1919
Medium
Palladium print
Dimensions
Image: 24.4 × 19.4 cm (9 5/8 × 7 11/16 in.); Paper: 25.1 × 20.3 cm (9 15/16 × 8 in.)
Classification
palladium print
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
66434
Art Historical Context
Alfred Stieglitz’s 1919 palladium print *Georgia O’Keeffe—Hands and Thimble* offers an intimate glimpse of the artist’s future wife through a tightly cropped view of her hands. The delicate thimble resting on one finger subtly evokes both domestic craft and artistic labor, while the soft tonal gradations of the palladium process lend a luminous, almost sculptural quality to the skin and metal. Created at a pivotal moment when Stieglitz was championing photography as a fine art in its own right, the image reflects his modernist interest in form, light, and personal connection. Stieglitz produc...
About the Artist
Alfred Stieglitz · 1864–1946
Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946) was a pioneering American photographer, art dealer, publisher, and advocate for the Modernist movement who was instrumental over his 50-year career in making photography an accepted art form. Born in Hoboken, New Jersey, to German Jewish immigrant parents, Stieglitz spent his formative years studying mechanical engineering in Berlin, where he discovered photography in ...