Seeing Magnificent Beauty

In this talk, Oklahoma City Museum of Art President & CEO Dr. Michael Anderson discusses the original exhibition, Magnificent Beauty: Georgia O’Keeffe & the Art of the Flower, featuring loans from the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. Magnificent Beauty features paintings, prints and photographs by O’Keeffe and photographer Imogen Cunningham, putting the two major twentieth-century artists in dialogue in their treatment of remarkably similar floral subjects (placing special emphasis on their attraction to calla lilies). What began, with this exhibition, as a practical opportunity for OKCMOA to exhibit and interpret the important works by the two artists in a new manner has become something very different and more exciting in the space of the museum’s galleries: “Magnificent Beauty” invites a form of spectatorship closer to O’Keeffe’s artistic point of view. This is a talk about what can be lost and gained by the constraints placed by particular collections and exhibitions, and the spaces where they are exhibited

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This talk was recorded as part of our free ‘Mornings With O’Keeffe’ lecture series on the first Wednesday of every month.

About the Speaker:

Dr. Anderson is President & CEO of the Oklahoma City Museum of Art. He served as the Museum’s Curator of Film and American Art and Director of Curatorial Affairs, before moving into his current position in January 2020. In his time at OKCMOA, he has overseen a number of major gifts and purchases for the permanent collection, multiple collection gallery reinstallations and has curated or co-curated more than fifteen shows, including Iranian film and photography exhibition Kiarostami: Beyond the Frame, which was named honorable mention for best exhibit by the Oklahoma Museums Association last year. He holds his PhD in History of Art and Film Studies from Yale University with his original research focusing on Hollywood films from the 1920s and 30s.