Georgia O’Keeffe

Paintings

Georgia O’Keeffe is known for her brilliantly colored paintings.

O’Keeffe painted many great floral painting which were large pieces. O’Keeffe exaggerated the flower and enlarged to completely fill the canvas, then stylized with the natural forms of the flower.

Surrealistic Point of View O’Keeffe was also known for

her Southwest paintings which include adobe buildings, desert mountain panoramas or floating cow skulls against rich blue skies.

The emphasis on the simplest aspects of the shapes created a surrealistic point of view.

When looking at O’Keeffe’s pieces what does it mean to have a “surrealistic point of view”? Click on the image to get you started

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Early Years

O’Keeffe was born on November 15th, 1887.

She was the second of seven children and grew up on a farm in Wisconsin.

Education as a young artist. O’Keeffe knew she would be an artist, and so did her

teachers.

In 1905 O’Keeffe pursued studies at the Art Institute of Chicago.

O’Keeffe also studied at the Art Students League in 1907. While she was here she studied with William Merritt Chase

William Merritt Chase

What kind of an artist was Merritt Chase?

How did his artwork influence O’Keeffe?

Click on image to get you started and begin to research. Use your word

document to answer these questions.

Dead Rabbit with Copper Pot

In 1908 O’Keeffe won the League's William Merritt Chase still-life prize for her oil painting Dead Rabbit with Copper

Pot.

Commercial Artist

In 1908 O’Keeffe stopped painting. She became very discouraged with her work. She said that the smell of turpentine made her sick.

O’Keeffe move to Chicago and worked as a commercial artist and then became an elementary art teacher in Texas.

Arthur Dow

In 1912 O’Keeffe took a summer course for art teacher at the University of Virginia, with the artist and educator Arthur Dow.

Dow’s teachings encouraged O’Keeffe to begin to paint and to think about the process and self-expression.

Dow believed that the goal of art was the expression of the artist personal ideas and feelings.

He believed that the subject matter was best realized through arrangements of line, color and shades and shadows.

What a Difference?

Look at the two artworks composed by O’Keeffe.

How was her artwork influenced by her professors Chase and Dow?

What are the differences in these two artworks?

Experimental Phase

Dow’s ideas offered O’Keeffe and alternative to imitative realism.

O’Keeffe experimented with this idea for two years while she continued to teach.

Abstraction

O’Keeffe went to New York to take classes and to put Dow’s theories to a test.

O’Keeffe began a series of abstract charcoal drawings, which she then sent to a friend in New York.

In 1916, Anita Pollitzer took some of O'Keeffe's drawings to Alfred Stieglitz at his 291 gallery.

Alfred Steiglitz said O’Keeffe drawings were the "purest, finest, sincerest things that had entered 291 in a long while."

1st Exhibition

O’Keeffe had her first exhibition in 1916 at Steiglitz “291 Gallery,” without her knowledge.

O’Keeffe’s official exhibition was in 1917 at 291 Gallery. These were watercolor painting that she did while teaching and studying with Dow in Texas. Click on the image to watch a video clip about O’Keeffe and Steiglitz

New York & Steiglitz

Within two years, Steiglitz had convinced O’Keeffe to permanently live in New York and to focus on her paintings.

After her arrival, Steiglitz fell in love with O’Keeffe and left his wife.

Stieglitz had started photographing O'Keeffe during her 1917 exhibition.

He continued making photographs of her, taking more than 300 portraits between 1918 and 1937.

Large Scale Art

In the 1920s, O'Keeffe made both natural and architectural forms the subject of her work.

In 1924 she painted her first large-scale flower painting Petunia No. 2, which was first exhibited in 1925.

Exhibitions

In 1923, Stieglitz organized exhibitions of O'Keeffe's work, but in the mid-1920s, she had become known as one of America's most important artists.

In 1928 six of her calla lily paintings sold for $25,000 dollars, which was the largest sum ever paid for a group of paintings by a living American artist.

New Mexico

In 1929 through 1949, O'Keeffe spent part of every year working in New Mexico.

O’Keeffe began collecting and painting bones, and started painting the area's distinctive architectural and landscape forms.

In 1932 O'Keeffe suffered a nervous breakdown following an uncompleted Radio City Music Hall mural project.

She was hospitalized in early 1933 and did not paint again until 1934.

Inspiration

O’Keeffe returned to New Mexico in the summer of 1934. That summer, she discovered Ghost Ranch, whose varicolored cliffs inspired some of her most famous landscapes.

In 1940 she purchased a house on the ranch.

Click on the image to watch a video clip about O’Keeffe and New Mexico.

Questions:

What kind of art did O’Keeffe create?

What influenced O’Keeffe’s artwork?

What materials did O’Keeffe use and how?

What were some of the challenges that O’Keeffe encountered while painting?

R.I.P

In the summer of 1946 Stieglitz suffered a cerebral thrombosis. O’Keeffe quickly flew to New York to be with him. He died on July 13, 1946.

She took his ashes to Lake George and buried them at the foot of a tall pine tree beside the lake. Even though they were separated for long periods through the years, Stieglitz had taken care of many business details for O'Keeffe. She now had to take on these responsibilities.

New Mexico

In 1949 O'Keeffe moved to New Mexico permanently.

During the 1950s, O'Keeffe produced a series of paintings featuring the architectural forms of her adobe house.

In 1971 Georgia became aware that her eyesight was failing and eventually stopped painting in 1972.

O’Keeffe moved to Santa Fe where she died on March 6, 1986, she was 98.

Question:

What is abstraction?

What is your favorite O’Keeffe piece and why?

How many artworks did O’Keeffe produce in her lifetime?

Click on the left image to help you with these questions

When you are finished please hand in your paper electronically to my teachers’ folder.

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