Tina Modotti
Italian photographer and actress
Georgia O’Keeffe was an American modernist painter known for her meticulous paintings of natural forms, particularly flowers and desert landscapes. She gained international recognition and is considered the ‘Mother of American modernism’, with a career spanning seven decades.
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About the Georgia O’Keeffe
Georgia Totto O’Keeffewas an American modernist painter and draftswoman whose career spanned seven decades and whose work remained largely independent of major art movements. Called the “Mother of American modernism”, O’Keeffe gained international recognition for her meticulous paintings of natural forms, particularly flowers and desert-inspired landscapes, which were often drawn from and related to places and environments in which she lived.
From 1905, when O’Keeffe began her studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, until about 1920, she studied art or earned money as a commercial illustrator or a teacher to pay for further education. Influenced by Arthur Wesley Dow, O’Keeffe began to develop her unique style beginning with her watercolors from her studies at the University of Virginia and more dramatically in the charcoal drawings that she produced in 1915 that led to total abstraction. Alfred Stieglitz, an art dealer and photographer, held an exhibit of her works in 1917. Over the next couple of years, she taught and continued her studies at the Teachers College, Columbia University.
She moved to New York in 1918 at Stieglitz’s request and began working seriously as an artist. They developed a professional and personal relationship that led to their marriage on December 11, 1924. O’Keeffe created many forms of abstract art, including close-ups of flowers, such as the Red Canna paintings, that many found to represent vulvas, though O’Keeffe consistently denied that intention. The imputation of the depiction of women’s sexuality was also fueled by explicit and sensuous photographs of O’Keeffe that Stieglitz had taken and exhibited.
O’Keeffe and Stieglitz lived together in New York until 1929, when O’Keeffe began spending part of the year in the Southwest, which served as inspiration for her paintings of New Mexico landscapes and images of animal skulls, such as Cow’s Skull: Red, White, and Blueand Summer Days (1936). After Stieglitz’s death in 1946, she lived in New Mexico for the next 40 years at her home and studio or Ghost Ranch summer home in Abiquiu, and in the last years of her life, in Santa Fe. In 2014, O’Keeffe’s 1932 painting Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 sold for $44,405,000–at the time, by far the largest price paid for any painting by a female artist. Her works are in the collections of several museums, and following her death, the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum was established in Santa Fe.
Frequently Asked Questions
Georgia O’Keeffe was an American modernist painter and draftswoman whose career spanned seven decades. She gained international recognition for her meticulous paintings of natural forms, particularly flowers and desert-inspired landscapes.
Georgia O’Keeffe was born on November 15, 1887.
Georgia O’Keeffe developed a unique artistic style, influenced by artist Arthur Wesley Dow, that featured abstract and close-up paintings of flowers and desert landscapes.
Georgia O’Keeffe had a professional and personal relationship with Alfred Stieglitz, an art dealer and photographer, who held an exhibit of her works in 1917. They later married in 1924.
Georgia O’Keeffe lived and found inspiration in the Southwest, particularly in New Mexico, where she painted landscapes and images of animal skulls. After Stieglitz’s death, she lived in New Mexico for the next 40 years.
Georgia O’Keeffe’s artwork, including her close-up paintings of flowers, gained significant recognition and value. In 2014, her 1932 painting ‘Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1’ sold for $44,405,000, the largest price paid for any painting by a female artist at the time.
Georgia O’Keeffe was considered the ‘Mother of American modernism’ and her work remained largely independent of major art movements, contributing to the development of American modernist painting.
27 Quotes by Georgia O’Keeffe
- 1.
I believe I would rather have Stieglitz like something – anything I had done – than anyone else I know.
Georgia O’KeeffeAmerican modernist artist (1887-1986)
- 2.
Singing has always seemed to me the most perfect means of expression. It is so spontaneous. And after singing, I think the violin. Since I cannot sing, I paint.
Georgia O’KeeffeAmerican modernist artist (1887-1986)
- 3.
It was all so far away – there was quiet and an untouched feel to the country and I could work as I pleased.
Georgia O’KeeffeAmerican modernist artist (1887-1986)
- 4.
Marks on paper are free – free speech – press – pictures all go together I suppose.
Georgia O’KeeffeAmerican modernist artist (1887-1986)
- 5.
Anyone who doesn’t feel the crosses simply doesn’t get that country.
Georgia O’KeeffeAmerican modernist artist (1887-1986)
- 6.
I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life – and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.
Georgia O’KeeffeAmerican modernist artist (1887-1986)
- 7.
I often painted fragments of things because it seemed to make my statement as well as or better than the whole could.
Georgia O’KeeffeAmerican modernist artist (1887-1986)
- 8.
To create one’s world in any of the arts takes courage.
Georgia O’KeeffeAmerican modernist artist (1887-1986)
- 9.
I feel there is something unexplored about woman that only a woman can explore.
Georgia O’KeeffeAmerican modernist artist (1887-1986)
- 10.
I often lay on that bench looking up into the tree, past the trunk and up into the branches. It was particularly fine at night with the stars above the tree.
Georgia O’KeeffeAmerican modernist artist (1887-1986)
- 11.
When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not.
Georgia O’KeeffeAmerican modernist artist (1887-1986)
- 12.
Sun-bleached bones were most wonderful against the blue – that blue that will always be there as it is now after all man’s destruction is finished.
Georgia O’KeeffeAmerican modernist artist (1887-1986)
- 13.
You get whatever accomplishment you are willing to declare.
Georgia O’KeeffeAmerican modernist artist (1887-1986)
- 14.
I decided that if I could paint that flower in a huge scale, you could not ignore its beauty.
Georgia O’KeeffeAmerican modernist artist (1887-1986)
- 15.
I decided to start anew, to strip away what I had been taught.
Georgia O’KeeffeAmerican modernist artist (1887-1986)
- 16.
One can not be an American by going about saying that one is an American. It is necessary to feel America, like America, love America and then work.
Georgia O’KeeffeAmerican modernist artist (1887-1986)
- 17.
The days you work are the best days.
Georgia O’KeeffeAmerican modernist artist (1887-1986)
- 18.
I said to myself, I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me – shapes and ideas so near to me – so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn’t occurred to me to put them down.
Georgia O’KeeffeAmerican modernist artist (1887-1986)
- 19.
I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me – shapes and ideas so near to me – so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn’t occurred to me to put them down.
Georgia O’KeeffeAmerican modernist artist (1887-1986)
- 20.
It was in the 1920s, when nobody had time to reflect, that I saw a still-life painting with a flower that was perfectly exquisite, but so small you really could not appreciate it.
Georgia O’KeeffeAmerican modernist artist (1887-1986)
- 21.
Nobody sees a flower really; it is so small. We haven’t time, and to see takes time – like to have a friend takes time.
Georgia O’KeeffeAmerican modernist artist (1887-1986)
- 22.
I had to create an equivalent for what I felt about what I was looking at – not copy it.
Georgia O’KeeffeAmerican modernist artist (1887-1986)
- 23.
I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way – things I had no words for.
Georgia O’KeeffeAmerican modernist artist (1887-1986)
- 24.
One can’t paint New York as it is, but rather as it is felt.
Georgia O’KeeffeAmerican modernist artist (1887-1986)
- 25.
I know now that most people are so closely concerned with themselves that they are not aware of their own individuality, I can see myself, and it has helped me to say what I want to say in paint.
Georgia O’KeeffeAmerican modernist artist (1887-1986)
- 26.
I don’t very much enjoy looking at paintings in general. I know too much about them. I take them apart.
Georgia O’KeeffeAmerican modernist artist (1887-1986)
- 27.
I hate flowers – I paint them because they’re cheaper than models and they don’t move.
Georgia O’KeeffeAmerican modernist artist (1887-1986)