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| Georgia O'Keeffe as a teaching assistant in 1915 |
She was one of America's first abstract artists, and also one of the finest.
She is more famous for her representational work depicting natural forms, such as flowers and bones. Her streamlined style eliminated details in order to bring out essential forms.
Background: Georgia grew up on a prosperous farm near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. She had two brothers, and four sisters. Her mother, Ida, was a strong and determined woman with high standards who served as a good role model; Ida's two sisters practiced drawing and painting as lady-like pastimes. The farm was successful and the O'Keeffe family was prosperous, but while Georgia was in high school, they decided to move to Virginia, and her father's business ventures there did not do well.
Training: Education for women was a tradition in Ida's family, and Georgia and her sisters were given private art lessons while they were still in grade school. Georgia decided to be an artist in the eighth grade and took all the available art classes in high school in Wisconsin and a girls' prestigious prep school Virginia, graduating in 1905.
She spent the next two years studying at the most famous art schools in Chicago and New York City. She learned the techniques of traditional realist painting, but they gave her no satisfaction. She got so discouraged that she gave up the idea of making a career as an artist in 1908.
In 1912, when she was 25, her enthusiasm for art was reawakened by a summer course in which she studied the revolutionary ideas of Arthur Wesley Dow. Dow's theory was that instead of copying nature, artists should use the elements of art—composition, shape and color, etc.— to express their feelings or ideas. Georgia found this approach liberating, and in 1914-15 she took a year or two of classes from Dow himself.
Career: The reason Georgia was able to achieve so much was that she had strong maternal support, she had extensive formal training, and she was "discovered" and promoted by a powerful mentor. She was working as an art educator in west Texas, when a friend of hers showed some of her abstract charcoal drawings to the internationally known art impresario, Alfred Stieglitz. He was so impressed that he exhibited these works without Georgia's permission. In 1918, when she was 31, Stieglitz invited her to live in New York and practice art full time, an invitation she could hardly refuse. Stieglitz began to promote Georgia's work and introduced her to all the key players in the art world.
During her first few years in New York, Georgia painted pure abstractions—totally new shapes in totally new, totally feminine, color schemes. A Russian artist named Wassily Kandinsky is traditionally credited with the first abstract work of art, in 1911. Georgia's works were only a few years later, and it appears that she arrived at abstraction independently. Where Kandinsky's abstractions were complex arrangements of shapes, Georgia created designs that were whole and coherent within themselves.
After a few years, Georgia moved from pure abstraction and began to base her designs on extreme close-ups of flowers and other plants.
Both Georgia's abstractions and her designs based on flowers were given an erotic interpretation by critics, in line with the fad for Freudian interpretation current in the 1920s.
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| Georgia O'Keeffe, 1918 by Alfred Stieglitz |
Georgia had conquered the New York art scene, but she wasn't comfortable there. She longed for solitude and wide open spaces, and she found them in New Mexico in 1929. For the next 13 or 14 years, Georgia made annual painting excursions to various parts of New Mexico, and eventually bought property there.
In the 1930s, Georgia's subjects switched to pueblos, mountains, and sun-bleached animal bones; if she painted flowers, she kept a polite distance so that viewers would not fixate on the sexuality running through all of nature. Whatever the subject, O'Keeffe simplified and abstracted the forms to their essence.
In 1949, when she was 62 years old, Georgia moved to New Mexico permanently.
In the 1950s, Georgia began to travel internationally and to evoke the places she saw in her paintings.
In 1972, failing eyesight caused Georgia to quit painting. In the last years of her life, assistants helped her complete some other creative projects. She died at the age of 98.
Only 5 years later Alfred began a long-term affair with photographer Dorothy Norman that caused Georgia to have a nervous breakdown that required a 2-month stay in hospital. That's when she began to spend summers in New Mexico, staying with a wealthy art patron there. Despite the fact that Stieglitz continued his relationship with Dorothy, New York was Georgia's home until his death in 1946. It took her a few years to wrap up Alfred's affairs; then she moved to a hacienda in the wilderness north of Santa Fe.
During her decades in the desert, O'Keeffe's example was as important as her paintings. Other photographers took an interest in her and in her lifestyle. She came to represent passionate commitment to finding your own way in art and being true to your inner genius.
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| Pelvis Series, Red with Yellow, date not given |
Our photos on Georgia's Work:
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| Music, Pink and Blue No. 2, 1918 Oil on canvas Whitney / Jan's photo, 2015 |
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| Series I - No. 1, 1918 Amon-Carter / Jan's photo, 2012 |
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| Series I - No. 3, 1918 Milwaukee / Jan's photo, 2013 |
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| Series I, No. 7, 1919 Milwaukee / Jan's photo, 2013 |
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| Black Spot No. 3, 1919 Albright-Knox / Jan's photo, 2012 |
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| Red Canna, 1919 High / Jan's photo, 2010 |
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| Red Canna, 1923 Pennsylvania Academy / Jan's photo, 2012 |
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| Reflection Seascape, 1922 SFMOMA / Jan's photo, 2008 |
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| Mask with a Golden Apple, 1923 Crystal Bridges / Jan's photo, 2012 |
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| Calla Lily Turned Away, 1923 O'Keeffe Museum Photo by Dan L. Smith, 2016 |
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| Alligator Pears, 1923 O'Keeffe Museum Photo by Dan L. Smith, 2016 |
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| Grey Line with Lavender and Yellow, c. 1923 Metropolitan / Jan's photo, 2015 |
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| Dark Abstraction, 1924 St. Louis / Jan's photo, 2013 |
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| A Celebration, 1924 Seattle Photo by Dan L. Smith, 2012 |
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| The Eggplant, 1924 Toronto / Jan's photo, 2013 |
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| Birch Trees at Dawn on Lake George, 1925 St. Louis / Jan's photo, 2012 |
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| White Birch, 1925 Amon-Carter / Jan's photo |
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| Gray Tree, Lake George, 1925 Metropolitan Photo by Dan L. Smith |
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| East River No. 1, 1926 Wichita / Jan's photo, 2010 |
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| City Night, 1926 Minneapolis, Jan's photo, 2013 |
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| The Shelton with Sunspots, N.Y., 1926 Chicago / Jan's photo, 2010 |
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| Abstraction, 1926 Whitney / Jan's photo, 2015 |
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| Cos Cob, 1926 Fred Jones Jr. / Jan's photo, 2010 |
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| Ballet Skirt or Electric Light, 1927 Chicago / Jan's photo, 2010 |
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| White Rose with Larkspur No. 2, 1927 MFA, Boston / Jan's photo, 2012 |
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| Calla Lily (Lily-Yellow No. 2), 1927 Oklahoma City / Jan's photo, 2012 |
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| Lake George Autumn, 1927 Milwaukee Photo by Dan L. Smith, 2013 |
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| East River from the 30th Story of the Shelton Hotel, 1928 New Britain Museum of American Art Photo by Dan L. Smith, 2006 |
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| East River from the Shelton Hotel, 1928 Metropolitan / Jan's photo, 2015 |
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| Shell No. 1, 1928 National Gallery / Jan's photo, 2010 |
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| Brown and Tan Leaves, 1928 De Young / Jan's photo, 2014 |
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| Lawrence Tree, 1929 Wadsworth Atheneum / Jan's photo, 2013 |
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| Grey, Blue, Black Pink and Green Circle, 1929 Dallas / Jan's photo, 2012 |
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| Black and White, 1930 Whitney / Jan's photo, 2015 |
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| Apple Blossoms, 1930 Nelson-Atkins / Jan's photo, 2010 |
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| Red Hills Beyond Abiquiu, 1930 Eiteljorg / Jan's photo, 2012 |
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| Ranchos Church, 1930 Metropolitan Photo by Dan L. Smith, 2015 |
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| Cow's Skull with Calico Roses, 1931 Chicago / Jan's photo, 2010 |
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| Cow’s Skull, Red, White and Blue, 1931 Metropolitan Photo by Dan L. Smith, 2006 |
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| Dark and Lavender Leaves, 1931 Georgia O'Keeffe Photo by Dan L. Smith, 2016 |
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| Manhattan, 1932 Smithsonian / Jan's photo, 2010 |
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| White Trumpet Flower, 1932 San Diego / Jan's photo, 2017 |
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| Stables, 1932 Detroit / Jan's photo, 2010 |
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| Cross with a Red Heart, 1932 Minneapolis / Jan's photo, 2013 |
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| Taos Pueblo, 1934 Eiteljorg Photo by Dan L. Smith, 2012 |
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| Small Purple Hills, 1934 Crystal Bridges / Jan's photo, 2012 |
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| Barn with Snow, 1934 San Diego / Jan's photo, 2017 |
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| Feather and Brown Leaf, 1935 Crystal Bridges / Jan's photo, 2012 |
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| Turkey Feathers in Indian Pot, 1935 Milwaukee / Jan's photo, 2013 |
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| Ram's Head, White Hollyhock-Hills, 1935 Brooklyn Photo by Dan L. Smith |
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| Summer Days, 1936 Whitney / Jan's photo, 2015 |
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| Dear’s Skull with Pedernal, 1936 MFA, Boston Photo by Dan L. Smith, from slide |
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| Bob's Steer Head, 1936 Yale Photo by Dan L. Smith, 2013 |
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| From the Faraway Nearby, 1937 Metropolitan Photo by Dan L. Smith, 2006 |
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| Jimson Weed, 1936-1937 Indianapolis Photo by Dan L. Smith, 2012 |
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| Hollyhock Pink with Pedernal, 1937 Milwaukee / Jan's photo, 2013 |
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| The Cliff Chimneys, 1938 Milwaukee / Jan's photo, 2013 |
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| Bella Donna, 1939 O'Keeffe Museum Photo by Dan L. Smith, 2016 |
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| Red and Yellow Cliffs, 1940 Metropolitan / Jan's photo, 2015 |
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| Grey Hills, 1941 Indianapolis / Jan's photo, 2012 |
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| Blue Sky, 1941 Worcester / Jan's photo, 2013 |
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| Pelvis with Distance, 1943 Indianapolis / Jan's photo, 2012 |
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| Dead Cottonwood Tree, 1943 Santa Barbara / Jan's photo, 2017 |
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| Pelvis I, 1944 Milwaukee / Jan's photo, 2013 |
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| Pelvis II, 1944 Metropolitan Photo by Dan L. Smith, 2006 |
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| Cottonwood III, 1944 Butler Photo by Dan L. Smith, 2006 |
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| Abiquiu Sand Hills and Mesa, 1945 Chicago / Jan's photo, 2010 |
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| Cebolla Church, 1945 North Carolina / Jan's photo, 2010 |
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| Dead Tree with Pink Hill, 1945 Cleveland Photo by Dan L. Smith, from slide |
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| Goat's Horn with Red, 1945 Hirshhorn Photo by Dan L. Smith, 2006 |
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| In the Patio I, 1946 San Diego / Jan's photo, 2017 |
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| Brooklyn Bridge, 1949 Brooklyn Museum Photo by Dan L. Smith, from slide |
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| Poppies, 1950 Milwaukee / Jan's photo, 2013 |
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| Pedernal--From the Ranch #1, 1956 Minneapolis / Jan's photo, 2013 |
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| Blue B, 1959 Milwaukee / Jan's photo, 2013 |
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| Sky with Flat White Cloud, 1962 National Gallery / Jan's photo, 2010 |
Internet Example:
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| Lake George Reflections, date unknown Internet grab; private collection |
