SFMOMA: Georgia O'Keefe, Ansel Adams, Robert Frank

“If you’re going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair” …. Sorry right place wrong subject, although there is something about this with Georgia O’Keefe. The exhibition locates both her and Adams in the ‘Stieglitz group’ along with Edward Steichen and Paul Strand and helpfully shows their approach to seeing and visual concern that was current in the first third of the 20^th century.

Both Adams and O’Keefe travelled extensively (sometimes together) in the American South West. O’Keefe’s work isolates core elements of the landscape, simplifying design and colours sometimes to almost psychedelic intensity. Adams kind of does the same through technically wrought black and white photography. The exhibition works best when the same or very similar subjects by both artists are compared side by side. However, most of the exhibition comprises of rooms with work by the artists simply placed on opposite walls; under curated maybe. The exhibition book is very good with decent reproductions although the tonality of the photographs is noticeably different from that of the original prints.

“All across the nation such a strange vibration, people in motion” sang Scott McKenzie and this sums up Robert Franks ‘The Americans’, probably the seminal photographic book of the 20^th century. An excellent exhibition that starts with Frank’s early work and does a decent job illustrating how he developed his approach to seeing; a million miles away from that of O’Keefe and Adams. On display are work prints, contact sheets and good discussion of the ideas behind the layout of the book. The prints from the book are presented in order with sometimes a debateable analysis of what the picture means. Overall, it’s a very stimulating and thought provoking presentation on how to produce a major photographic work. Factoid: the 83 photographs in the book are drawn from over 27,000 exposures made over 2 years.

At the end of the exhibition there is a short (too short?) presentation of photographers influenced by Frank. Sort of a “whole generation with a new explanation”. The usual suspects Freedlander and Winogrand are there. There is also an acknowledgement of Walker Evans both as a precursor to Frank and sponsor for the endowment that funded the project: as so often modern photography comes back to Walker Evans. If you’re going to San Francisco this summer, go see these exhibitions at SFMOMA