O'Keefe: The Life of an American Legend

How did a gaunt, fearful schoolteacher from the Texas Panhandle become the best-known American woman artist of the century? This engrossing biography of Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) sweeps away myths and legends. An icon of self-reliance whose life in the New Mexico desert has inspired feminists, the acerbic and imperious O'Keeffe, in Hogrefe's candid portrait, tended to dominate other women and looked up to certain men as superior beings. Her husband, New York photographer and art impresario Alfred Stieglitz, 23 years her senior, was a parental figure, ``the foundation against which she would rebel.'' Hogrefe, a former Washington Post arts columnist, attributes O'Keeffe's frequent rages to suppressed memories of childhood incest. Following a series of nervous breakdowns, O'Keeffe came to accept her bisexuality. ``The victim became the victimizer,'' subjugating a series of women who worshiped her like a goddess, in Hogrefe's account. Drawing on interviews, he sympathetically limns Juan Hamilton, the volatile young artist who cared for the elderly O'Keeffe, and whom many critics portray as a villain preying on an old lady. O'Keeffe's artistic achievements seem all the more remarkable in light of this searchingly critical yet affectionate biography, a remarkable piece of detective work. Photos. (Aug.)