Florine Stettheimer: You Wonderful Hot-Cold Thing

Lucy Ives at Poetry Magazine:

After her death in May 1944, the painter, poet, and designer Florine Stettheimer was eulogized by fellow painter Georgia O’Keeffe. Although the two were not always on warm terms, no other female artist in the United States equaled Stettheimer for originality, sense of color, or national renown. Indeed, given that there were so few female artists in New York City—or in the United States—who made significant work during the 1920s and ’30s, O’Keeffe was both a fitting and perhaps necessary choice. However, if the orator was predictable, the speech was not. Unlike many eulogies that tend toward glossy retrospection, O’Keeffe’s remarks were purposeful and pointed. This was an opportunity to speak candidly about matters Stettheimer herself might not have expressed so directly. “Florine made no concessions of any kind to any person or situation,” O’Keeffe said. “[She] put into visible form … a way of life that is going and cannot happen again, something that has been alive in our city.”

more here.