ARTventures at the KIA: Resources for Educators
GEORGIA O’KEEFFE and Her Times:
American Modernism from the Lane Collection
of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
May 9-September 13, 2009
Preparing Your Students: Make their KIA visit the best ever!
A successful tour starts well before the students board the bus. Advanced
planning greatly increases what students will get out of a museum learning
experience. Follow-up activities reinforce and put the students’ museum
learning experiences into perspective.
Get the most out of your tour with:
• A Pre-visit Checklist to keep you organized
• Helpful hints for a successful museum visit
• Pre-and post-visit activities
• Art vocabulary and curriculum connections
• Important instructions for your chaperones
Why visit an art museum?
• Observing, discussing and interpreting works of art instructs our
understanding of our culture, our present and our past.
• Looking at art increases visual literacy and ability to articulate meaning.
A few of the MI Curriculum Standards for Arts Education
a tour of Georgia O’Keeffe and Her Times will address:
Standard 2: All students will apply skills and knowledge to create in the arts.
Standard 3: All students will analyze, describe and evaluate works of art.
Standard 4: All students will understand, analyze and describe the arts in their
historical, social cultural contexts.
KALAMAZOO INSTITUTE OF ARTS
314 S. Park St. • Kalamazoo, MI 49007 • 269/349-7775 • www.kiarts.org
ARTist Tours sponsored by:
KIA Tour Program sponsored by:
Georgia O’Keeffe and Her Times Educator Guide: Contents
What’s Inside?
Table of Contents
Page
Museum Visit 101: Important Information to Prepare for Your KIA Visit...................................................3
Museum Manners and How to be a Great Chaperone...................................................................................4
William H. Lane: Art Collector and Educator...................................................................................................5
Artist in Focus: Georgia O’Keeffe...................................................................................................................6-7
Georgia O’Keeffe and Her Times: BIG Ideas and Themes...............................................................................7-8
Resources..................................................................................................................................................................9
Art Vocabulary...........................................................................................................................................................10
Image to project or print out: O’Keeffe’s Deer Skull with Pedernal..............................................................11
Image to project or print out: Arthur Dove’s That Red One.........................................................................12
FYI: Important Information-Please Read Carefully!
Museum Visit 101: A Checklist
Before your visit (2-3 weeks):
Recruit chaperones! One adult is required for every 15 students (2nd-12th grade). Please share
the How to be a Great Chaperone handout with your adult volunteers so they know what will be ex
pected of them. Only required chaperones receive complimentary admission for ticketedexhibitions.
Transportation! Groups must arrange their own transportation. Ask us about busing stipends.
Name Tags! It is so helpful when docents and museum staff can call each student by name.
Use large, bold printed letters.
Pre-visit student preparation!
•Try to visit the KIA a few weeks before to familiarize yourself with the museum’s layout, including
restrooms, classrooms, etc. Note where the exhibitions you might be viewing are located.
A personal visit is crucial if you have any concerns about exhibition or tour content. Please
call 349-7775, x 3162 for an appointment with KIA staff.
• Read through the pre-visit/post-visit activities listed in this packet and decide which are best
suited for your students.
• Work with students on completing assignments before visit. Review Museum Manners.
• Please inform the KIA Museum Education staff if your group has an assignment or will need extra
time in the galleries following their tour.
• Familiarize chaperones with any assignment so they can assist as needed.
• Please bring the proper materials for students to complete their project: pencils only and paper
with something hard to write on. Students may sit on the floor or stools can be made available with
advanced notice.
Day of Visit Checklist
Name Tags! Do you have them? Are your students divided into the proper number of groups as
specified on the tour confirmation?
Chaperones! Make copies of How to be a Great Chaperone for volunteers.
Camera? You may take photos of your students outside or in the KIA Lobby. Photography is not
allowed in the galleries.
Gallery Shop! Remind students that the KIA Gallery Shop is not included as part of the visit.
Museum Manners! Please review Museum Manners one more time.
Coats, backpacks, umbrellas and roller shoes! These items are not permitted in the
galleries. Please leave them on the bus, weather permitting or in bins located in the lobby.
Let’s be early birds! Please arrive at the South Street entrance at least 5 minutes before the
tour begins and have students organized into the proper number of tour groups as specified in the
tour confirmation. A docent or KIA staff member will greet your group, review Museum Manners
and then each small group will be assigned a docent and dismissed into the galleries.
Oops! We’re late! Please call the KIA receptionist at 269/349-7775 if you will be late. As
groups may be scheduled back to back, a late arrival could shorten your visit. Docents will wait no
more than 20 minutes. After that time we reserve the right to cancel or shorten your tour.
After the Tour
Discuss the tour with your students. Round out the experience with some post-visit activities.
Evaluate! Fill out the Tour Evaluation form and return in the envelope provided. Let us know what
did or did not go well.
How to be a Great Chaperone • Museum Manners
To be a great chaperone, you don’t need any special knowledge–just common sense and
a willingness to jump in and get involved. Here are a few tips to help make this visit
successful:
• Introduce yourself to your group and your museum docent (tour guide).
• Stay with your group during the tour and assist the teachers and docent.
• Follow and help remind students of the KIA’s Museum Manners.
Classes tour the museum in small groups of 10-15 students Each group is led by a
museum docent, a specially trained volunteer tour guide. Docents use questions and
discussion to encourage students to look at and think about selected artworks during
the tour. As tours move through the museum, chaperones help keep the group together.
They remind students of their Museum Manners if needed and are good role models
during the tour. Chaperones are ready to help the docent if asked.
Thanks for being part of your group’s guided tour. Your participation will help make your
school’s visit to the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts fun and educational. We invite you and
your family to visit the KIA again!
KIA Museum Manners
1. Do not touch any of the art because it is fragile and the oils on your fingers (even if
your hands look clean) will make the work of art dirty. If everyone touched, the art
would be ruined, and no one would be able to enjoy it. We want it to last as long as
possible.
2. Please walk in the museum. We do not want you or the art to get hurt.
3. Use quiet voices during your tour; other people are trying to enjoy their visit too.
4. Stay with your group. Be ready to look carefully and think about what you see. Your
docent will ask you to share your ideas about the works of art.
5. Gum, food and drinks are not allowed in the galleries because spills could damage the
works of art.
6. Please do not lean on walls/cases as you might lean into a work of art or mark the
walls.
Museum Manners • How to be a Great Chaperone
How to be a Great Chaperone
William H. Lane : Art Collector and Educator (1914-1995)
About the Collector
The art in Georgia O’Keeffe and Her Times was collected by one
individual, a man named William H. Lane. He wanted to do more in
life than managing his successful plastics business. In 1949 he decided
to learn more about paintings. Excited by the thrill of buying his first
original painting Lane went on to buy over 300 works of art.
Lane collected American Modernist art when few other people were
interested in this type of art. He bought only art that really interested
him—and that would fit in the station wagon he drove to New York
City galleries. Lane enjoyed many styles of Modern art, but liked
landscape and still life subjects best He collected many works by Georgia O’Keeffe and Arthur Dove
who were inspired by natural and man-made landscapes. Lane like New England industrial subjects
and rural landscapes better than scenes of city life. He bought only a few paintings of people. But no
matter what style, Lane wanted art that looked at America in a new way.
Sharing his collection became as important to Lane as collecting. He believed art could change how
people saw and thought about things. He loaned his collection to over 40 museums and college art
galleries. Lane donated 90 paintings and works on paper to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, which
continues to share this remarkable collection with others.
William Lane became friends with many of the artists whose work he collected. He collected paintings that were created during his lifetime. When your students come to see the exhibition, they will
see the different genres of art that Lane collected: still lifes, landscapes and figures.
Still Lifes
Landscapes
Jay Hall Connaway, Frozen Brook,
East Arlington,Vermont, 1951
Karl Knaths, Duck Decoy, 1940
Figures
Karl Zerbe, Job, 1949
Learning about Collectors and Collecting
William H. Lane collected art but you can make a collection of just about any kind of object: stamps,
bottle caps, stuffed animals, etc.
1) Have students learn about other famous art collectors, living or dead (Isabella Stewart Gardner, Bill
Cosby, Peggy Guggenheim, Duncan Phillips). How do they decide what to collect? What do they do
with their collections? Give students small images of famous artworks and ask them which art
pieces would they collect and why? What would they like to do with their collection?
2) Students bring in their own collections. Organize the objects into a small exhibition. Students
should write labels about their collections and a collector’s statement about why they collect these
types of objects and how they take care of them.
Artist in Focus: Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986)
Deer’s Skull with Pedernal, 1936; oil on canvas
So I brought home the bleached bones as my symbols of the desert. To
me they are as beautiful as anything I know.
-- Georgia O’Keeffe
Like her flower paintings, O’Keeffe takes this ordinary deer skull and
enlarges it so that we can experience it in a new context. O’Keeffe
further challenges the viewer with extreme views of near and far,
playing with the painting’s space, composition and our sense of reality.
Juxtaposed with the skull and tree is the flat-topped mountain called
Pedernal which O’Keeffe could see from her studio.
Skulls and wood pieces, bleached white by the sun with strong,
curved lines and interesting nooks and crannies that catch the light,
became popular subjects when O’Keeffe began to travel to the
southwest on a regular basis in the 1930s and 40s.
Responding to the Art
Project the image, Deer Skull with Pedernal or distributed color copies of it and have the students
discuss what they see before providing any information about the artist or the location featured.
Some questions you might ask are:
What do they see? What colors did the artist use? How much of detail can you see in this work?
What kind of lines do they see? How did the artist create a sense of distance or space? Where in
the U.S. might you find this type of landscape? Is this a place that you would like to visit? What
season is this? How do you know? Why is the skull so big and the hill so small? How does the
artist use light and shadow?
After discussing, share some information about Georgia O’Keeffe and the painting.
Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986) was born in Wisconsin, the second of seven children. She grew up
on a dairy farm and was always interested in art and nature. O’Keeffe studied art at the School of
the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Students League in New York City. She also taught art in
Chicago and then Amarillo, TX, where she was first inspired by the southwest desert landscape. In
1924, O’Keeffe married Alfred Stieglitz, a New York photographer and gallery owner who encouraged and promoted her painting. When she lived in New York City she painted large-scale views of
buildings, especially skyscrapers. She also painted flowers so large that they almost seemed like
abstract designs. In 1928, she took the first of many trips to New Mexico. After her husband died,
she moved to New Mexico permanently and it inspired her art for the rest of her life. She was 99
when she died.
Learn More about Georgia O’Keeffe!
What else do students want to know about this artist? Divide the students into groups and assign
topics to each group. For example, one group may be interested in her early years and education.
Other topics might be her city works, her flowers and then her southwestern works. Each group
should do research using the resources at the end of this packet plus any other materials they find
and give a presentation about what they learned, including any important images.
Georgia O’Keeffe and Her Times: BIG IDEAS and THEMES
Georgia O’Keeffe’s style: O’Keeffe transformed her subject matter (flower, rocks, shells, animal
bones, landscapes) into abstract images with subtle changes in color and light and shade as well as
crisp edges and lines. Her art combines both representation and abstraction.
Discussion Activities: Look at Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings of buildings and landscapes. Compare
and contrast how she treats the city versus the country subjects.
Social Studies Activities: Research Abiquiú, New Mexico and learn about its landscape and climate.
Find it and other places where Georgia O’Keeffe lived and worked and mark them on an US map.
Calculate the distance between New York City and Abiquiú.
Cerro Pedernal, seen in many O’Keeffe paintings is Spanish for “Flint Hill.” Locate the mountain
range it is part of. Why might it have gotten this name? Read about the history of New Mexico and
the southwest. Research the different Native peoples who live there.
Art Activity: Deer Skull with Pedernal was inspired by the view outside her back window and objects
she found on her walks through that landscape. Choose an interesting object that might not usually
be used as an art subject (wood piece, egg beater, shoe, etc.) Draw it very large on your paper
(perhaps parts will go off the paper’s edge) paying attention to detail, texture, light and shade. Add
elements of your backyard in the background. Try using pastels to get softer effects like O’Keeffe.
Georgia O’Keeffe and Her Times: American Modernism from the Lane Collection, Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston features 45 paintings from 18 different artists working between 1900 and 1950.
With so many artists and works to choose from, we simplified the exhibition into two BIG
IDEAs to introduce to your students with pre- and post-visit questions and activities.
BIG IDEA #1: The word “Modernism” is in the title of the exhibition. What does
“Modernism” or “being modern” mean?
Before the tour: 1900-1950 was a time of great change in the United States. Have students research
some of the major industrial, scientific and social developments that occurred in the United States
during these years and discuss how these changes might have affected American artists. Why might
they want to paint their world, especially the American landscape differently? Most of these artists
lived and worked on the East Coast (New York City, Philadelphia and Boston)
Examples: Building of the Brooklyn Bridge and other suspension bridges, development of
the automobile and assembly line practices, motion pictures, etc.
During the tour: Look for landscapes in the exhibition that show nature but also look for landscapes
that show modern industry. Be sure to let the KIA know ahead of time if you would like to focus
on landscapes during your tour.
After the tour: Decide if you prefer landscape pictures of nature or industry and factories. Why?
Discuss ideas as a class and then have the students create their own natural or industrial landscape.
BIG IDEA #2: How artists translate modern ideas and subjects into art.
From 1859 to 1900, the U.S. changed a great deal. Artists wanted to show this in their art and felt
these new subjects required a new, modern style.
Before the tour: Look at Deer Skull with Pedernal included in this guide. Use this image to explore
the four discussion points listed below.
1) Photography
Photography was a relatively new and modern art form which influenced how many artists composed
their paintings. Like photographers, they cropped their images, repeated forms to create a multiple exposure-like appearance and manipulated optical effects like linear perspective and space. Look at Deer Skull with
Pedernal and challenge students to see where O’Keeffe may have been influenced by photography. Does she
crop the image? How does she play with space and perspective in this painting? Try to image the painting in
tones of gray, white and black like a photograph. Where are the dark areas and where are the light areas?
2) Colors, lines, shapes and textures
At this time, artists paid more attention to how their picture was organized or its formal properties
rather than telling a story. Working creatively with colors, shapes, lines, texture became the reason for the
picture. How does O’Keeffe use these art elements in Deer Skull with Pedernal? If it is not telling as story, what
is this painting about? How does it make you feel?
3) Abstraction
O’Keeffe and her fellow artists could all paint very realistically, but they felt that this style of painting
was too old-fashioned for this fast-paced modern world. Some artists, like O’Keeffe took small objects and
made them so large that they were often not recognizable as real things. Other artists like Arthur Dove
simplified real things like trees into simple, often geometric shapes. Compare the image That Red One by
Dove included in this packet to O’Keeffe’s Deer Skull with Pedernal. Discuss how each artist used abstraction
in their own way.
4) Subject Matter
Artists like O’Keeffe and Dove both used the natural world around them for subject matter. Other
artists in their circle used industrial subjects. O’Keeffe loved the southwestern landscape and the objects that
she often found while walking near her home. Bones, dried flowers, wood pieces would become subjects of
many of her paintings. Discuss why she might have placed the deer skull and the landscape behind it together
in a painting. O’Keeffe thought the skull was beautiful and interesting to look at. Do you agree? Why or why
not?
During the Tour: Discuss some of the ideas your students explored as a class with the docent in front of the
painting, Deer Skull with Pedernal and Arthur Dove’s That Red One. Look for other works in the exhibition that
show the impact of photography, explore art elements (colors, lines, shapes, textures), use abstraction or
look at the modern world in a new way.
After the tour: Have students draw a picture of the painting they liked most from their museum visit. Write a
short paragraph about why they liked it.
Artists in the exhibition, Georgia O’Keeffe and Her Times
Hyman Bloom (1913- )
Patrick Henry Bruce (1881-1936)
Jay Hall Connaway (1893-1970)
Ralston Crawford (1906-1978)
Stuart Davis (1892-1964)
Arthur Garfield Dove (1880-1946)
Marsden Hartley (1887-1943)
Hans Hoffmann (1880-1966)
Karl Knaths (1891-1971)
Yasuo Kuniyoski (1889-1953)
John Marin (1870-1953)
Leonard Maurer (1912-1976)
Walter Tandy Murch (1907-1067)
Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986)
Charles Sheeler (1883-1965)
Niles Spencer (1883-1952)
Max Weber (1881-1961)
Karl Zerbe (1903-1972)
Learn more!
Assign students
to research an
artist before
or after
their visit!
Photographs of many of
these artists will be
featured in Through the
Phiotographer’s Lens:
O’Keeffe and Her Circle,
also on view
RESOURCES
(Juvenile Non-Fiction)
CDs/Videos
Ask the Experts Guide to Collectibles, 2008. 745.1 A834
American Masters-Alfred Stieglitz: The Eloquent Eye
Bryant, Jen. Georgia’s Bones. JE B (ages 4 and up)
American Masters-Georgia O’Keeffe
Hubley, Dan. Kids Collect: Amazing Collections for Fun, Crafts
and Science Fair Projects, 2002. J 748.9H
Mother O’Keeffe, 2007
Lowery, Linda. Georgia O’Keeffe, 1996. J 9210 (ages 9 and
up)
Miller, Judith. Antiques Investigator, 2007 748.9 M648.5
Rodriguez, Rachel. Through Georgia’s Eyes. J921 OKEE
(ages 6 and up)
Spangenburg, Ray. Georgia O’Keeffe: The Life of An Artist.,
2002. J 9210
Venezia, Mike. Georgia O’Keeffe. (ages 6 and up)
Winter, Jeanette. My Name is Georgia: A Portrait, 1998
J9210 (Ages 4 and up)
(Juvenile Fiction)-Collectors and Collecting
Art History for Kids
Art: A World History. 1998.
709 A783YP
Blizzard, Gladys S. Come Look with Me: Exploring Landscape
with Children, 1992. 701.1
Harris, Jonathan. Art History: The Key Concepts, 2006.
709 H3147
Janson, H.W. History of Art for Young People, 1997.
RJ 709J
Kohl, Mary Ann and Kim Solga. Great American Artists for
Kids: Hands-On Art Experiences in the Styles of Great American
Masters, (Bright Ideas for Learning series).
Banks, Kate. Max’s Words., 2009 JE Bank
Mason, Antony. A History of Western Art: From Prehistory to
the 20th century, 2007. J 709 MASO
Chaconas, Dori. Cork and Fuzz: The Collectors, 2008. JE
Chac
Wright, Tricia. Smithsonian Q & A: American Art and Artists:
The Ultimate Question and Answer Book.
Dahlin, Adam. Junk Collector School, 2007. JE Dahl
Ruzzier, Sergio. The Room of Wonders, 2006. JE Ruzz
Websites
Art History for Kids
www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/lessons/middle/forkids.htm
www.kinderart.com/arthistory
www.metmuseum.org/explore/index.asp
American Modernism
//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_modernism
Georgia O’Keeffe
www.georgia-okeeffe.com
www.okeeffemuseum.org
www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/georgiaokeeffe/about-the-painter/55/ -108k Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
www.mfa.org
Phoot
Great Women Artists: Georgia O’Keeffe
ART VOCABULARY
Abstract
This style of art does not show objects realistically. Abstract artists sometimes simplify
or exaggerate shapes and colors. If the artwork is totally abstract–doesn’t resemble
anything in the natural world–it is called non-representational or non-objective.
Balance
A sense of stability, sometimes symmetry, established by the way forms, lines and colors are
place within a painting.
Color
What the eye sees when light is reflected from it. Hue is the color in its most intense
form. Value refers to the differences in hue ranging from the lightest to darkest. Primary
colors (red, blue, yellow) cannot be produced by mixing other colors together. Secondary
colors (orange, violet, green) are created by mixing primary colors.
Composition
The way shapes, color, value, line, shape, form, and texture are arranged and organized in a
work of art.
Docent
From the Latin word, docere, meaning to teach. Docents are specially trained museum
guides.
Elements of Art The basic components used by the artist when producing works of art–color, value, line,
shape, form, texture, and space. These elements are found in any artwork.
Form
Shape with three dimensions–height, width, and depth.
Impressionism 19th century art style that tries to capture a moment of everyday life.
Landscape
An artwork that depicts a scene from nature in which the place or the land itself becomes
the main subject.
Line
The path of a moving point. It can be vertical, horizontal, diagonal, curved, angular, zigzag,
bent, straight, interrupted, thick, thin.
Portrait
A likeness made of a person created by an artist, such as a painter or photographer.
Realism
Art style that tries to make objects look lifelike.
Space
Actual (open air around sculpture or architecture) or implied (represented by control of
size, color, overlapping).
Still Life
A picture of an object or group of objects–implies an absence of people or activity.
Texture
Surface treatment ranging from very smooth to quite rough. It can be real or implied.