The Art Students League of New York Interior 2017

Georgia O'Keeffe was a 20th-century American painter and pioneer of American modernism best known for her canvases depicting flowers, skyscrapers, creature skulls and southwestern landscapes.

Who Was Georgia O'Keeffe?

Artist Georgia O'Keeffe studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Students League in New York. Photographer and art dealer Alfred Stieglitz gave O'Keeffe her first gallery prove in 1916, and the couple married in 1924. Considered the "mother of American modernism," O'Keeffe moved to New United mexican states subsequently her husband's death and was inspired past the mural to create numerous well-known paintings. O'Keeffe died on March 6, 1986, at the historic period of 98.

Early Life

O'Keeffe was built-in on November xv, 1887, on a wheat farm in Dominicus Prairie, Wisconsin. Her parents grew up together as neighbors; her father Francis Calixtus O'Keeffe was Irish gaelic, and her mother Ida Totto was of Dutch and Hungarian heritage. Georgia, the second of vii children, was named subsequently her Hungarian maternal grandfather George Totto.

O'Keeffe's mother, who had aspired to become a dr., encouraged her children to go well-educated. Every bit a child, O'Keeffe developed a curiosity nearly the natural globe and an early interest in becoming an creative person, which her female parent encouraged by arranging lessons with a local artist. Art appreciation was a family affair for O'Keeffe: her two grandmothers and 2 of her sisters also enjoyed painting.

O'Keeffe continued to written report art, likewise as academic subjects at Sacred Heart Academy, a strict and exclusive loftier schoolhouse in Madison, Wisconsin. While her family unit relocated to Williamsburg, Virginia in 1902, O'Keeffe lived with her aunt in Wisconsin and attended Madison High School. She joined her family unit in 1903 when she was fifteen and already a budding artist driven by an independent spirit.

In Williamsburg, O'Keeffe attended Chatham Episcopal Establish, a boarding school, where she was well-liked and stood out every bit an individual, who dressed and acted differently than other students. She likewise became known every bit a talented artist and was the art editor of the schoolhouse yearbook.

Preparation as an Artist

After graduating from loftier school, O'Keeffe went to Chicago where she attended the Fine art Institute of Chicago, studying with John Vanderpoel from 1905 to 1906. She ranked at the elevation of her competitive class, but contracted typhoid fever and had to take a year off to recuperate.

Later she regained her health, O'Keeffe traveled to New York City in 1907 to continue her art studies. She took classes at the Art Students League where she learned realist painting techniques from William Merritt Chase, F. Luis Mora and Kenyon Cox. One of her still lives, Expressionless Rabbit with Copper Pot (1908), earned her the prize of attention the League's summer school in Lake George, New York.

While she continued to develop as an artist in the classroom, O'Keeffe expanded her ideas well-nigh fine art by visiting galleries, in particular, 291, founded by photographers Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen. Located at 291 5th Avenue, Steichen's one-time studio, 291 was a pioneering gallery that elevated the fine art of photography and introduced the advanced work of modern European and American artists.

Later a year of study in New York Urban center, O'Keeffe returned to Virginia where her family had fallen on hard times: her female parent was bedridden with tuberculosis and her begetter'southward business concern had gone bankrupt. Unable to afford to proceed her art studies, O'Keeffe returned to Chicago in 1908 to piece of work every bit a commercial artist. After 2 years, she returned to Virginia, eventually moving with her family to Charlottesville.

In 1912, she took an art class at the summertime school of the Academy of Virginia, where she studied with Alon Bement. A faculty member of Teachers Higher at Columbia University, Bement introduced O'Keeffe to the revolutionary ideas of his Columbia colleague, Arthur Wesley Dow, whose approach to limerick and design was influenced by the principles of Japanese fine art. O'Keeffe began experimenting with her art, breaking from realism and developing her ain visual expression through more abstruse compositions.

As she experimented with her fine art, O'Keeffe taught art at public schools in Amarillo, Texas, from 1912 to 1914. She was also Bement's didactics assistant during the summers and took a class from Dow at Teacher'south Higher. In 1915, while teaching at Columbia Higher in Columbia, Southward Carolina, O'Keeffe began a series of abstract charcoal drawings and was one of the start American artists to practice pure brainchild," co-ordinate to the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Photo: Tony Vaccaro/Getty Images

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Love Affair with Stieglitz

O'Keeffe mailed a few of her drawings to Anita Pollitzer, a friend and old classmate, who showed the work to Stieglitz, the influential art dealer. Taken by O'Keeffe's piece of work, he and O'Keeffe began a correspondence and, unbeknownst to her, he exhibited 10 of her drawings at 291 in 1916. She confronted him near the exhibit simply allowed him to go along to prove the piece of work. In 1917, he presented her offset solo show. A year later, she moved to New York, and Stieglitz found a place for her to live and work. He also provided financial support for her to focus on her fine art. Realizing their deep connexion, the artists fell in love and began an affair. Stieglitz and his wife divorced, and he and O'Keeffe married in 1924. They lived in New York City and spent their summers in Lake George, New York, where Stieglitz's family had a home.

Famous Artwork

As an artist, Stieglitz, who was 23 years older than O'Keeffe, found in her a muse, taking over 300 photographs of her, including both portraits and nudes. As an art dealer, he championed her piece of work and promoted her career. She joined Stieglitz's circle of artist friends including Steichen, Charles Demuth, Marsden Hartley, Arthur Dove, John Marin and Paul Strand. Inspired by the vibrancy of the mod art movement, she began to experiment with perspective, painting larger-calibration close-ups of flowers, the first of which was Petunia No. 2, which was exhibited in 1925, followed by works such every bit B lack Iris (1926) and Oriental Poppies (1928). "If I could paint the flower exactly equally I meet information technology no 1 would see what I see because I would paint it small like the blossom is small," O'Keeffe explained. "And so I said to myself - I'll paint what I see - what the bloom is to me only I'll paint it large and they will be surprised into taking time to look at it - I will make even busy New Yorkers accept time to see what I see of flowers."

O'Keeffe too turned her artist's eye to New York City skyscrapers, the symbol of modernity, in paintings including City Nighttime (1926),Shelton Hotel, New York No. 1 (1926) and Radiator Bldg—Night, New York (1927). Post-obit numerous solo exhibitions, O'Keeffe had her first retrospective, P aintings past Georgia O'Keeffe, which opened at the Brooklyn Museum in 1927. By this fourth dimension, she had become one of the well-nigh important and successful American artists, which was a major achievement for a female person artist in the male person-dominated art world. Her pioneering success would make her a feminist icon for afterwards generations.

Inspired past New Mexico

In the summer of 1929, O'Keeffe establish a new direction for her fine art when she made her first visit to northern New Mexico. The landscape, architecture and local Navajo culture inspired her, and she would return to New Mexico, which she called "the faraway," in the summers to paint. During this period, she produced iconic paintings includingBlackness Cross, New Mexico (1929),Cow'south Skull: Scarlet, White and Blue (1931) and Ram'due south Head, White Hollycock, Hills (1935), among other works.

In the 1940s, O'Keeffe's piece of work was celebrated in retrospectives at the Art Found of Chicago (1943) and at the Museum of Modern Art (1946), which was the museum's get-go retrospective of a female artist's work.

O'Keeffe split her fourth dimension betwixt New York, living with Stieglitz, and painting in New United mexican states. She was peculiarly inspired by Ghost Ranch, due north of Abiquiú, and she decided to movement into a business firm in that location in 1940. Five years after, O'Keeffe bought a 2nd house in Abiquiú.

Back in New York, Stieglitz had begun to mentor Dorothy Norman, a immature photographer who later helped manage his gallery, An American Identify. The close relationship betwixt Stieglitz and Norman somewhen adult into an affair. In his later years, Stieglitz's health deteriorated and he suffered a fatal stroke on July 13, 1946, at the historic period of 82. O'Keeffe was with him when he died and was the executor of his estate.

3 years after Stieglitz's expiry, O'Keeffe moved to New Mexico in 1949, the aforementioned yr she was elected to the National Constitute of Arts and Letters. In the 1950s and 1960s, O'Keeffe spent much of her time traveling the world, finding new inspirations from the places she visited. Among her new work was a series depicting aerial views of clouds every bit is seen in Sky in a higher place Clouds, IV (1965). In 1970, a retrospective of her work at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City renewed her popularity, peculiarly among members of the feminist art motion.

Death and Legacy

In her later on years, O'Keeffe suffered from macular degeneration and began to lose her eyesight. Equally a result of her failing vision, she painted her concluding unassisted oil painting in 1972, yet, her urge to create didn't stammer. With the assist of administration, she continued to make art and she wrote the bestselling book Georgia O'Keeffe (1976). "I can see what I want to paint," she said at the historic period of 90. "The thing that makes you want to create is all the same there."

In 1977, President Gerald Ford presented O'Keeffe with the Medal of Freedom and, in 1985, she received the National Medal of Arts.

O'Keeffe died on March 6, 1986, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and her ashes were scattered at Cerro Pedernal, which is depicted in several of her paintings. The pioneering artist produced thousands of works over the grade of her career, many of which are on exhibit at museums effectually the world. The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico is dedicated to preserving the life, art and legacy of the artist, and offers tours of her domicile and studio, which is a national historic landmark.

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Source: https://www.biography.com/artist/georgia-okeeffe

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