Tony Vaccaro American Icons Exhibition Program: In Conversation with Agapita Judy Lopez on Georgia O’Keeffe

 Via Taliesin West

IN CONVERSATION – Agapita Judy Lopez on Georgia O’Keeffe
March 7, 2024

American Icons: Frank Lloyd Wright and Georgia O’Keeffe explores the similarities and differences between two American masters, born in Wisconsin, who found homes in the Desert Southwest, as captured through the lens of photographer Tony Vaccaro. Join us as Agapita “Pita” Judy Lopez discusses her time as working at Georgia O’Keeffe’s home Abiquiú as O’Keeffe’s secretary and companion, and her close relationship with Ms. O’Keeffe.

*Please note that this program grants guests access only to the program location. To see more of our property, please consider adding a tour to your program.

Time:
6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Cabaret Theatre

Price:
Adults $35
Students (13-25 with student ID) $24
Members $31.50

Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Members receive discounts on Cultural Programs, have access to special Member-Only programs, and more. Learn about Membership here.

Tickets here

Meet Our Presenter

Agapita “Pita” Lopez began working with American artist Georgia O’Keeffe in 1974, and became her personal secretary in 1978 until her death on March 6, 1986. A third generation employee, her grandfather and mother also worked for O’Keeffe as has her maternal grandmother, father, brothers, and sister. In 1986, Pita continued working with the O’Keeffe Estate, and then The Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation as Secretary. She served as the Foundation’s Executive Director from 1999 to 2006. Currently, Projects Director of the O’Keeffe properties at Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch, she oversees the maintenance and preservation of both houses and the seasonal tours offered at the Abiquiu home and studio. She co-authored a book on the houses with Barbara Buhler Lynes, Curator of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum released by Abrams in the fall of 2012. With her brother, Belarmino Lopez, received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the New Mexico Historic Preservation Division.

Join Curator Niki Stewart on Nov. 9 for an in-depth look at the Tony Vaccaro photography exhibition American Icons: Wright & O’Keeffe

 

Via Taliesin West

American Icons: Wright & O’Keeffe

Taliesin West is the winter home and desert laboratory of Frank Lloyd Wright. The site in Scottsdale, Arizona, welcomes visitors year round through tours and programs for all ages. Since 2021, Taliesin West has offered changing exhibitions to explore during tours. From October 20, 2023 – June 3, 2024, American Icons: Wright & O’Keeffe is on display, featuring  photographs by Michael A. “Tony” Vaccaro.

In this course, exhibition curator Niki Stewart will take you on an in-depth journey into the similarities between Frank Lloyd Wright and Georgia O’Keeffe. Both legendary figures, they are typically seen in isolation. Through this exhibition, we compare and contrast the photographs, homes, and lives of these influential figures.

In these photographs — many of which have never been seen before — we see an intimate view of Wright and O’Keeffe in their homes and studios. Taken at Wright’s Wisconsin home, Taliesin, and O’Keeffe’s homes in New Mexico, Vaccaro casts an intimate lens on these well-known figures. By viewing the pictures in pairs, we begin to see all the ways Wright and O’Keeffe were similar, beyond the photographs themselves.

Thursday, November 9, 2023

10-11 am MST

Register here.

The exhibition is organized and presented at Taliesin West by the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. All photographs courtesy of the Tony Vaccaro Studio and Monroe Gallery of Photography.

About the Curator Niki Stewart:

Educator, Artist, and Museum Leader

Niki Stewart is passionate advocate for arts and education.  She serves as the Vice President and Chief Learning & Engagement Officer at The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. Based at Taliesin West, Wright’s winter home and desert laboratory, she oversees all public engagement programs, tours, and exhibitions at this UNESCO World Heritage site.  Her museum experience also includes leadership roles at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University (Philadelphia, PA), Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (Bentonville, AR), and the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art (Sarasota, FL).  Niki has also worked as an Art Educator in the public schools, as program administrator of Art Bridges, and with the Walt Disney Company. She’s a founding faculty member of the National Art Education Association’s School for Art Leaders, and a graduate of the Getty Museum Leadership Institute. She holds a BFA in Illustration from Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, FL.

Santa Fe’s Monroe Gallery of Photography is exhibiting more than 50 photographs by the acclaimed photographer Tony Vaccaro

Photographer follows resurgent career back to Santa Fe with exhibit

The Albuquerque Journal

By Kathaleen Roberts / Journal Staff Writer

Sunday, November 18th, 2018

Georgia O'Keeffe with Cheese, New Mexico, 1960

©Tony Vaccaro

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — When photographer Tony Vaccaro first met Georgia O’Keeffe in 1960, the great artist refused to speak to him for five days.

On assignment from LOOK magazine, Vaccaro had traveled to New Mexico by train with art editor Charlotte Willard.

O’Keeffe had been expecting a different photographer, one of her favorites, such as Ansel Adams, Todd Webb or Richard Avedon.

Trying his best to charm her, Vaccaro cooked O’Keeffe a steak and fixed her broken washing machine, to no avail.

Suddenly, the topic turned to bullfighting. Vaccaro mentioned he had met the great Spanish matador Manolette.

The artist pivoted in her seat to face him. She never looked at Willard again.

“When O’Keeffe found out, she kind of embraced me and that’s when we became the greatest friends,” the 95-year-old Vaccaro said in a telephone interview from his home in Long Island City, N.Y.

Givenchy by the Pool, South of Paris, France, 1961 

©Tony Vaccaro

Santa Fe’s Monroe Gallery of Photography is exhibiting more than 50 photographs by the acclaimed photographer in “Tony Vaccaro: Renaissance,” opening Friday, Nov. 23. The gallery will offer a free screening of the 2016 HBO documentary “Under Fire: The Private Untold Story of Private First Class Tony Vaccaro” at 2:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 24, followed by a question-and-answer session with the photographer. The show will hang through Jan. 27, 2019.

After that initially frosty meeting, Vaccaro spent a month in Abiquiú photographing O’Keeffe, producing some of her most iconic portraits.

The photographer captured “Georgia O’Keeffe with cheese” while they were traveling. The artist looks playfully at the camera through a hole in a piece of Swiss cheese.

“We had decided to go to the desert for a picnic,” Vaccaro said. “The desert she liked was White Sands. I arranged the catering, the salad, everything, but it began to rain, so we moved into the car. So we had the picnic sitting in the car. I was driving; I looked back and I saw her looking at me through a hole in the cheese.”

Vaccaro kept in touch with O’Keeffe over the years.

“She had an opening in 1971 at the Whitney Museum,” he said. “We were talking. She pulled me away and said, ‘Tony, let’s go see our picture,’ which is the famous one where she holds a famous painting she had made.”

Georgia O’Keeffe with painting, New Mexico, for LOOK, 1960  ©Tony Vaccaro

Vaccaro’s career across the decades included war photography, fashion photography and celebrity portraiture.

ne fashion assignment featured a collection of hats. Vaccaro spotted a spiral-shaped hat resembling a certain building. He asked the slinky model Isabella Albonico to pose in the chapeau in front of the Guggenheim Museum.

He said Albonico sported the longest neck he had ever seen.

“You look at Isabella’s face and you know she thinks it’s funny,” he added.

“I saw Frank Lloyd Wright design the Guggenheim from scratch,” Vaccaro continued. “I photographed it as it went along.”

Guggenheim Hat, New York, 1960

©Tony Vaccaro

The HBO documentary about Vaccaro’s war photography has kindled a career resurgence. He will turn 96 on Dec. 20.

Vaccaro was drafted into World War II at the age of 21. By the summer of 1944 he was on a boat heading toward Omaha Beach six days after the first landings at Normandy. Vaccaro was determined to photograph the war and brought his portable 35mm Argus C-3. He fought on the front lines, developing his photos in combat helmets at night and hanging the negatives from tree branches.

The result was “White Death, Pvt. Henry Irving Tannebaum, Ottre, Belgium,” 1945, one of the most famous photographs of the war.

“I took that picture and at that time this man had a son who was 1 year old,” Vaccaro said. “Fifty years later I got a phone call saying, ‘I am the son of Mr. Tannebaum.’ He said, ‘Would you take me where you took the picture of my father dead in the snow?'”

He did, only to find the spot had disappeared.

“It was a field of Christmas trees the owner was selling to Portugal,” Vaccaro said. “Fifty years later, it was growing Christmas trees. And it so happens Tannebaum means Christmas tree.”

If you go

WHAT: “Tony Vaccaro: Renaissance”

WHEN: Public reception 5-7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 23. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily through Jan. 27, 2019.

WHERE: Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar, Santa Fe

HOW MUCH: Free at monroegallery.com, 505-992-0800