"We tend to think of her as carved in granite," says Hunter Drojohowska-Philp, describing the woman and artist she became acquainted with while writing her first book, "Full Bloom: The Art and Life of Georgia O'Keeffe."

As guest curator of "Bridges and Waterfalls: Georgia O'-Keeffe in Hawai'i," Drojohowska-Philp has organized a small, evocative exhibition at the Honolulu Academy of Arts.

The show features six paintings O'Keeffe made while visiting Hawai'i in 1939, and perhaps to conjure up the commonly held image of the worldly painter as rugged feminist icon, Drojohowska-Philp places at the entrance to the gallery a photograph of the artist taken in Hana by Harold Stein, a Boy Scout executive on Maui in the 1930s. In the photograph, O'Keeffe looks skyward, and there is indeed something about her gaze that makes her seem made of stone. It is no small part of O'Keeffe's power as an artist that she can communicate strength and weakness simultaneously. We may tend to think of her as carved in granite, yet we see in her work reflections of the ephemeral condition of living human in flesh and blood.

O'Keeffe traveled to Hawai'i on the Matson liner Lurline in 1939. Her trip was paid for in part by the Dole Co., which had arranged for O'Keeffe to paint a picture of a pineapple that could be used in advertisements.

While her trip was underwritten as a business venture, the artist had her own reasons for going to Hawai'i. During the late 1930s, she fell prey to a crippling depression and was hospitalized for what was diagnosed at the time as "psychoneurosis."

According to Drojohowska-Philp, much of the blame for the decline of the artist's mental health could be placed at the feet of her husband, Alfred Steiglitz, the renowned photographer and gallery owner.

Early on, O'Keeffe "appealed to Stieglitz's need to mold everyone in his orbit," said Drojohowska-Philp in a lecture at the academy last month.

Stieglitz published nude photographs of O'Keeffe early in her career, so when her paintings were initially exhibited in a show organized by Stieglitz in 1917, the work was reviewed as sexual and racy. Stieglitz embraced the sensational press coverage and promoted her as a star.

O'Keeffe and Stieglitz married, and eventually her profile in the art world eclipsed that of her husband and mentor. As she grew more independent, Stieglitz became more unfaithful.

In his 60s, he took up with Dorothy Norman, an heiress and socialite nearly 40 years his junior. Stieglitz made no effort to hide his affair, and in Drojohowska-Philp's estimation, the humiliation and pain of her husband's infidelity contributed to O'Keeffe's hospitilization and estrangement from painting. For two years the artist created no new work. After her hospitilization, she began a brief romance with the poet Jean Toomer, began to paint again, and headed back to New Mexico, a place that inspired her.

Travel became a crucial way for O'Keeffe to reinvigorate her enthusiasm for painting. During the 1930s she spent time in Bermuda, Maine and Lake George, N.Y., where she gained so much weight from overeating that, as Drojohowska-Philp tells it, "she outgrew her underwear and had to wear Stieglitz's."

When offered the chance to visit Hawai'i at the expense of Dole, O'Keeffe couldn't resist. She is said to have loved the Islands, and spent time on O'ahu, Maui and the Big Island. She hiked, wore slippers and ate sashimi, said Drojohowska-Philp. On Maui, O'Keeffe stayed with Willis Jennings, manager of Hana Plantation, and several of the most compelling paintings in "Bridges and Waterfalls" come from her artistic exploration of that idyllic landscape.

As with Frieda Kahlo, another artist whose life has been as scrutinized as her self-portraits, however, O'Keeffe's work stands on its own merit outside of the personal details.

In addition to her nuanced, expert understanding of color and shape, O'Keeffe's Hawai'i paintings reveal the uncanny way she finds the personal in the geographical. As quoted by Drojohowska-Philp, O'Keeffe once said, "Before I put brush to canvas, I question: Is it mine?"

Anyone who has spent time in Hawai'i will understand how a lush green valley can exist externally and internally. When hikers encounter 'Iao Valley as O'Keeffe did in 1939, they experience and remember it in individual, personal ways. It remains in their memories and shapes parts of their understanding.

Never is this more clear than in a Georgia O'Keeffe painting. She paints land and consciousness simultaneously. Perhaps this is what O'Keeffe referred to when she described her style of painting as "that dream thing that I do."

O'Keeffe never did paint that pineapple during her visit to the Islands. Instead, she sent the Dole Co. a painting of a papaya tree — which they found unacceptable.

In exasperation, the company's advertising agency mailed her a pineapple plant after she returned to New York. She painted the bud of the plant, and the resulting advertisement is in "Bridges and Waterfalls."

The Honolulu Academy of Arts provides an excellent opportunity to gaze into what O'Keeffe saw when she visited the Islands.

In the words of the artist herself, "These paintings are what I have to give at present in exchange for what three months in Hawai'i gave me."

Timothy Dyke is a teacher at Punahou School.

MIFFED IN TIFF

At Hunter Drojohowska-Philp's lecture on Georgia O'Keeffe last month at the Doris Duke Theatre, someone asked if the artist had a lover at the end of her life.

"As far as I can determine, their relationship was not sexual," replied Drojohowska-Philp, and described Juan Hamilton, a young potter who, in 1973, arrived at O'Keeffe's ranch looking for work.

Before the writer could explain that Hamilton shared O'Keeffe's final years as a companion, an academy staff member interrupted with "This is Juan Hamilton," and a handsome man in his 50s stood up.

Using the word "feminist" as an epithet, Hamilton, a part-time Hawai'i resident, accused Drojohowska-Philp of mischaracterizing O'Keeffe's relationship with Alfred Stieglitz. The couple shared a complicated, meaningful love, he said. The air in the theater hung heavy.

Hamilton denounced Drojohowska-Philp's book and announced that he will soon publish one of his own. Drojohowska-Philp responded in defense, and eventually ended the lecture by saying, "Obviously we disagree."

— Timothy Dyke