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About Georgia O'Keeffe's Hawaii
For three months in 1939, Georgia O’Keeffe visited Hawai‘i and painted the Islands’ tropical plants and landscapes, capturing their essence and beauty. During two weeks on Maui, 12-year-old Patricia Jennings served as O’Keeffe’s guide and companion, showing her the lush valleys and hills of Wailuku and the plunging waterfalls, lava bridges, and black-sand beaches of Hāna. The bond forged between the Hawai‘i preteen and the American icon lasted a lifetime, and O’Keeffe’s letters and paintings give us a view of the Islands through the lens of the great American artist.
Georgia O’Keeffe’s Hawai‘i sheds light on a transitional period in O’Keeffe’s art and life, and shares for the first time this inspiring coming-of-age story. Patricia Jennings, now 85 and great-grandmother of three, lives on the Big Island of Hawai‘i. Coauthor Maria Ausherman is an educator and art writer in New York.
Critical Acclaim:
"If my painting is what I have to give back to the world for what the world gives to me, I may say that these paintings are what I have to give at present for what three months in Hawaii gave to me." - Georgia O'Keeffe, in Time Magazine
"Photographs of O'Keeffe smiling broadly are evidence of her own assertion that she considered Hawai'i one of the most beautiful and remarkable of places." - Honolulu Academy of Arts
"A beautifully illustrated… thoughtful memoir by ... a 12-year-old girl, ... now an octogenarian ... [who] served as the notoriously "difficult" O'Keeffe's companion and tour guide.” - San Francisco Chronicle