A new documentary about the life and work of American artist Georgia O’Keeffe will be released this spring. The actress Claire Danes features as the voice of the painter, who is considered the mother of American Modernism, while Danes’s husband, actor Hugh Dancy, will narrate. The film, entitled Georgia O’Keeffe: The Brightness of Light, will be released digitally on June 1st, with select screenings on May 10th, Mother’s Day.
The documentary is produced and directed by Academy Award and Emmy-Award winning independent filmmakers Paul Wagner and Ellen Casey Wagner. It features interviews with leading O’Keeffe scholars and experts, including Sarah Greenough, senior curator and head of the department of photographs at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; Cody Hartley, director of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum; and Agapita Judy Lopez, who cared for the artist and worked closely with her in her studio before becoming a projects director for the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum.
O’Keeffe is known for her sensitive, monumental paintings. They capture the natural world as they depict sensual florals, majestic animal skulls, and sweeping landscapes in vibrant, organic tones. O’Keeffe is considered one of the greatest women artists of the 20th century. The film was made across the locations where the artist lived and worked, including O’Keeffe’s Ghost Ranch and her second home in Abiquiu, New Mexico; Lake George in New York; and Palo Duro Canyon in the Texas Panhandle.
“In the last years of Georgia O’Keeffe’s life, curator Sarah Greenough of the National Gallery of Art worked with her on an exhibit and catalogue of O’Keeffe’s art and letters,” said Ellen Casey Wagner in a press statement. “The artist urged Greenough to set two standards for the show, and we have aspired to the same two standards for our film—to make it honest and to make it beautiful.”
