“The Mother of American Modernism” Georgia O’Keeffe November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986 “The Mother of American Modernism”

Early Life and Education Georgia O’Keeffe was born near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. Her parents were dairy farmers and she was the second of seven children. O’Keeffe decided by age 10 to be an artist and she and her sister took art instruction from local watercolorist Sara Mann. She studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from 1905-1906 then attended the Art Students League in New York City under the guidance of William Merritt Chase. In 1908 O’Keeffe met her future husband, photographer Alfred Stieglitz, at an exhibition of Rodin’s watercolors at the 291 gallery which he owned. Georgia O’Keeffe abandoned pursuing a career in art in 1908 since she didn’t feel that she could be good enough to distinguish herself in the traditional style in which she had studied. She worked as a commercial artist for four years until she was inspired to paint again when she was introduced to the innovative ideas of Arthur Wesley Dow by Alon Bement. Dow encouraged artists to express themselves using line, color and shading harmoniously.

Early Work O’Keeffe taught art classes in the public schools in Amarillo, Texas while attending classes under Dow at the Teachers College of Columbia University. Seeking to find a personal visual language through which she could express her feelings and ideas, she began a series of abstract charcoal drawings in 1915 that represented a radical break with tradition and made O’Keeffe one of the very first American artists to practice pure abstraction. Eventually Georgia O’Keeffe took a job as head of the Art Department at West Texas State Normal College where she often visited the Palo Duro Canyon making its forms the subject of her work. She had her first solo show at Stieglitz’s gallery 291 in April 1917. By 1918 he had convinced her to move to New York and devote all her time to her work. O’Keeffe and Stieglitz married in 1924. Number 13 Special Music Pink and Blue 1919

Exploration of Style By the mid-1920’s she began making large scale paintings of natural forms at close range, as if seen through a magnifying glass. Georgia O’Keeffe’s first large scale flower painting, Petunia, No. 2, was exhibited in 1925. Her flower studies are some of her most famous and controversial paintings. Yellow Cactus Flowers 1929 Canna Red and Orange 1926 Petunia, No. 2

Landscapes O’Keeffe’s New Mexico paintings coincided with a growing interest in regional scenes by American Modernists seeking a distinctive view of America. Her simplified and refined representations of this region express a deep personal response to the high desert terrain. Georgia O’Keeffe painted many works using her surrounding views of West Texas as inspiration. She truly embraced the spirit of her training in the use of line, color and shading. Her style was truly unique up to this point. Black Mesa Landscape 1930 My Backyard 1937 Red and Yellow Cliffs 1940

Skull Studies O’Keeffe also explored the shape and texture of animal skulls and bones which she incorporated into some of her paintings. Many of them also included flowers making for an unusual composition setting her style even farther apart from the traditional artists of her day. Horses Skull with Pink Rose 1931 Ram's Head White Hollyhock and Little Hills, 1935 Cow’s Skull with Calico Roses

New York City Works She also completed a significant body of paintings of New York City buildings. East River From The Shelton 1927 The Shelton with Sunspots 1926 New York City with Moon 1925 Radiator Building, Night, New York 1927

Controversial Style Georgia O’Keeffe’s earlier work had been mostly abstract but many viewing her work claimed it represented the female form. She strongly denied this interpretation of her work and rejected the celebration of her work by these feminists. Abstraction White Rose 1927 Pink Sweet Peas 1927 Grey Line with Black Blue and Yellow 1923

International Inspiration In the 1950s, O’Keeffe began to travel internationally. She created paintings that evoked a sense of the spectacular places she visited, including the mountain peaks of Peru and Japan’s Mount Fuji. At the age of seventy-three she embarked on a new series focused on the clouds in the sky and the rivers below. Sky Above The Clouds 1963 Machu Picchu, Peru

Suffering from macular degeneration and discouraged by her failing eyesight, O’Keeffe painted her last unassisted oil painting in 1972. But O’Keeffe’s will to create did not diminish with her eyesight. In 1977, at age ninety, she observed, “I can see what I want to paint. The thing that makes you want to create is still there.” Late in life, and almost blind, she enlisted the help of several assistants to enable her to again create art.  In these works she returned to favorite visual motifs from her memory and vivid imagination. Georgia O’Keeffe died in Santa Fe, on March 6, 1986, at the age of 98.

Paint like Georgia O’Keeffe! “Hills Before Taos” 1930