Behind the Music November 15, 2024

Passion, Prose, and Paint: How Georgia O’Keeffe's Love Story Inspired "The Brightness of Light"

"My first memory is of the brightness of light, light all around." – Georgia O’Keeffe

Georgia O'Keeffe, Sunrise (1916)

Some love stories are too big for mere words. The love story of American artists Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz is one of them; so much so that it inspired American composer Kevin Puts' multimedia musical piece The Brightness of Light, which is based on the thousands of love letters O'Keeffe and Stieglitz wrote each other throughout their lives.

O'Keeffe and Stieglitz's relationship was passionate, creative, and sometimes tumultuous. We can only ever get a glimpse of it through the letters they sent to each other, but the picture these letters paint deep, layered, and colorful.

Georgia O'Keeffe, Yellow Calla (1926) Georgia O'Keeffe

Born in 1887, O'Keeffe was still an up-and-coming independent artist when, in 1915, she began to correspond with Stieglitz after a mutual friend showed him her work. Stieglitz was a photographer and influential gallery owner, already well-established in the New York art world, and 23 years her senior to boot.

O'Keeffe didn't come from his world of avant-garde circles and sophisticated salons, but Stieglitz immediately saw something in her work. So much so that in 1916 he exhibited some of her art in his gallery without her knowledge. (She eventually confronted him, but did not demand he remove them. The next year he exhibited them with her permission.) The two would go on to exchange thousands of letters throughout their lives.

"How much we have in common. — Traits. — Both turn everything we touch into something really living — & amusing — for ourselves. — Both can laugh — really laugh — even at our heartaches… 300 years you want to live!! — I wish I could give you that as a gift —"

Stieglitz writing to O’Keeffe, November 1916

What began as a mentorship turned into a friendship and eventually, a romance, all very much facilitated by their letters, which brim with mutual admiration, curiosity, longing, lust, and love. They married in 1924, but they were opposites in many ways: Stieglitz was a city-loving, inveterate New Yorker. O'Keeffe preferred the open spaces of New Mexico, where she created some of her most famous work.

Georgia O'Keeffe, Red and Orange Streak (1919)

A 1924 oil painting by Georgia O'Keeffe that depicts a swirling dance of red, yellow, and black colors

The letters reveal a deep connection as they wrote about art, love, and their artistic and personal struggles. O'Keeffe eventually left New York for New Mexico permanently in 1929. While this separation seemed to tear Stieglitz apart, it brought her to life.

"There is much life in me — when it was always checked in moving toward you — I realized it would die if it could not move toward something ... I chose coming away because here at least I feel good … Maybe you will not love me for it — but for me it seems to be the best thing I can do for you —"

O’Keeffe writing to Stieglitz, July 1929

Reading their words today, you can feel the push and pull of two people who loved each other but were never quite easy together. "I feel there is something unexplored about me,” O'Keeffe once wrote to Stieglitz. "But if I rest, I’ll let you take away what is left of me."

Their love story was messy, complicated, and inspiring. Puts’ The Brightness of Light draws directly from the words and works of these two artists and doesn’t shy away from these complexities. The music shifts between moments of tension and joy, just like their love story did.

Maya Shwayder is the BSO's Senior Contributing Editor and Copywriter.