Cross by the Sea, Gaspé: 1932 (also called: Cross by the Sea, Canada)

Georgia O'Keeffe

An offset lithograph of Georgia O'Keeffe's 1932 oil painting "Cross by the Sea, Canada". The painting was first exhibited at the Downtown Gallery, New York, in 1937 with an accompanying portfolio titled "The Work of Georgia O'Keeffe: A Portfolio of Twelve Paintings", a set of fine reproductive lithographs in an edition of 100 published for promotional distribution, with each portfolio signed by the artist. In 1939, this portfolio was reprinted by Knight Publishers, Inc., New York, and printed by Dial Press, NY in an edition of 1,050. This impression is from this second edition and has been framed in a wide driftwood frame with acid free materials and OP-3 acrylic.

While her New Mexico cross paintings would become emblematic of her oeuvre, O'Keeffe was drawn to the subject of religious icons for much of her career. O'Keeffe's first trip outside the United States was not until 1932 when she traveled to Gaspé, Quebec, Canada from New York. There she found a plethora of landscape and subjects to capture, writing her mentor and partner Alfred Steiglitz that Canada was "a grand place to paint".

Many of her works from this time foreshadow the stylized Modernism she would become famous for, in particular her interpretation of the white barns dotting the rural landscape. While traveling along the Gaspe Peninsula, she was drawn to the many crosses that lined the its cliffs, commemorating sailors and fishermen lost at sea.