In an exclusive clip from Georgia O’Keeffe: The Brightness of Light, actress Claire Danes plays the role of the iconic American painter. In the clip, Georgia O’Keeffe recalls her earliest memory from when she was less than a year old. It’s an intimate moment, told in the words of O’Keeffe, one of the most significant artists of the 20th century.
The new documentary, directed by Academy Award– and Emmy Award–winning filmmakers Paul Wagner and Ellen Casey Wagner, offers the most comprehensive biographical portrait of O’Keeffe to date. Danes’s husband, actor Hugh Dancy, narrates the film, while Danes inhabits O’Keeffe’s voice throughout, drawing on the artist’s own letters and words. The film is now playing in select theaters and is available digitally today on Apple TV+, Amazon Prime, and Google Play.
From her early years in the Midwest to her rise in New York’s vibrant art world and finally to the remote deserts of New Mexico, The Brightness of Light traces the evolution of an artist whose work blurred the line between abstraction and realism. The film was made across the locations where O’Keeffe lived and worked, including Ghost Ranch and her home in Abiquiú, New Mexico; Lake George in New York; and Palo Duro Canyon in the Texas Panhandle.
It features interviews with leading O’Keeffe scholars, including Sarah Greenough, senior curator at the National Gallery of Art, and Cody Hartley, director of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum.
Known for her monumental paintings of florals, animal skulls, and Southwestern landscapes, O’Keeffe remains a defining figure in American modernism. This documentary cements her legacy and offers a new generation the chance to hear her story in her own words.
