Georgia OKeeffe
Georgia
Totto O'Keeffe was born in
the year on November 15, 1887. She was one of seven
children and spent most
of her childhood on a farm, with the typical farm
animals and rolling hills.
O'Keeffe's aunt, not her mother, was mostly
responsible for raising her.
O'Keeffe did not care much for her aunt, she once
referred to her as, "the
headache of my life." She did, however, have
some admiration for her aunt's
strict and self disciplined character. O'Keeffe
was given her own room and
less responsibility. The younger sisters had to do
more chores and share
close living conditions. A younger sister stated that
O'Keeffe always
wanted things her way, and if she didn't get them her way,
"she'd raise the
devil." It was found through family and friends that
O'Keeffe was like
this throughout much of her life. O'Keeffe began her training
early with
private art lessons at home. The foundation of her future as an
artist was
made. When O'Keeffe was in the eighth grade she asked a daughter of a
farm
employee what she was going to do when she grew up. The girl said she
didn't
know. O'Keeffe replied very definitely, "...I am going to be an
artist!"--"I
don't really know where I got my artist idea...I only
know that by that time
it was definitely settled in my mind." She entered
the Sacred Heart Academy,
an art school in Madison, Wisconsin, in 1901. At
school she discovered her
blooming talent for artwork. Her art seemed to be the
only stable element in
O'Keeffe's younger life. In 1902 her parents moved to
Virginia and were
joined by the children in 1903. By the age of 16, O'Keeffe had
5 years of
private art lessons at various schools in Wisconsin and Virginia.
One
particular teacher, Elizabeth Willis, encouraged her to work at her own
pace and
granted her opportunities that the other students felt were unfair.
At times she
would work intensely, and at other times she would not work for
days. When it
was brought to the attention of the principal, she would
reply..."When the
spirit moves Georgia, she can do more in a day than you can
do in a week"
After receiving her diploma in 1905 she left for Chicago to
live with her aunt
and attend the Art Institute of Chicago. She did not
return to the Institute the
following year after getting Typhoid Fever.
Instead, in 1907 she enrolled at the
Art Student League in New York City.
Discouraged with her work, she did not
return to the League in the fall of
1908, but moved back to Chicago and found
work as a commercial artist. During
this period O'Keeffe did not pick up a
brush, and said that the smell of
turpentine made her sick. She moved back to
her family in Williamsburg,
Virginia in 1909 and later enrolled at a nearby
college. In 1912 a friend in
Texas wrote to her explaining of a teaching
position was open in Amarillo,
Texas for a "drawing supervisor".
O'Keeffe applied for the position and
was hired for the fall semester. O'Keeffe
also made trips to Virginia in the
summer months to teach at the University of
Virginia. She would remain
working at Amarillo until 1914. After resigning her
job in Amarillo, O'Keeffe
moved to New York City to attend Columbia Teachers
College until
accepting a teaching position at Columbia College in South
Carolina.
Having a light schedule, she felt it would be an ideal job that would
give
her time to paint. It was at this time that she left behind all she had
been
taught about in regards to painting and began to paint as she felt. "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..." During her summers, she studied
and
taught art at the University of Virginia, working with Alon Bement,
who
introduced her to the theories of Arthur Wesley Dow. Returning to New
York in
1914, she enrolled at Columbia Teachers College to study under
Dow, whom she
later credited as the strongest influence on the development of
her art. In
1916, O'Keeffe's friend Anita Politzer showed some of these
abstract drawings to
photographer Alfred Stieglitz, who exhibited them at his
avant garde gallery
291, on Fifth Avenue in New York. He exclaimed, "At
last, a woman on
paper!" and told Anita the drawings were the "purest,
finest,
sincerest things that had entered 291 in a long while.". He explained
that
he would like to show them. O'Keeffe had first visited 291 in 1908, and
later on
several occasions, but had never talked with Stieglitz, although she
had high
regard for his opinions as a critic, "I believe I would rather
have
Stieglitz like something...anything I had done...than anyone else I
know
of...". In April Stieglitz exhibited 10 of her drawings, and she had
not
been consulted before the exhibit and only learned about it through
an
acquaintance. She confronted Stieglitz for the first time over the
drawings and
later agreeing to let them hang in his gallery. Needing a job,
and missing the
wide, flat spaces of northern Texas, Georgia accepted a
teaching job at West
Texas State Normal College in the fall of 1916.
While in Texas she would often
make trips to the nearby Palo Duro Canyon,
hiking down the steep slopes to
observe the sandstone formations. At least 50
watercolors were painted during
the time spent in Canyon, Texas. "It was all
so far away...there was quiet
and an untouched feel to the country and I
could work as I pleased."
Georgia's first solo show opened at the 291
gallery in April 1917. Most of the
exhibit had been these watercolors from
Texas. After the show Stieglitz decided
to close 291 due to financial
difficulties but said, "Well I'm
through...but I have given the world a
woman." During the winter Georgia
became ill with a flu that was sweeping the
country. She took a leave of absence
from the teaching job and later
resigned. It's possible that there was pressure
from the community to
encourage her resignation. One good reason was for what
people called
"radical views", which she had concerning the United
States' entry into
the war in Europe along with other rebel opinions that were
shocking to the
small Texas town. She was encouraged by Stieglitz to return to
New York.
By this time he had fallen in love with O'Keeffe and wanted to pursue
a
relationship. He being in an unhappy marriage, had moved out from the
family
home and into his studio. She boarded a train in June of 1918 to
return to New
York, Stieglitz, and to a new life that would make her into
one of the most
important artist of the century. Shortly after her arrival,
Alfred took Georgia
up to the Stieglitz family home at Lake George in the
Adirondack Mountains. They
would return to the lake home each summer for
years to come. Georgia produced
many paintings of the Lake George countryside
during these years. Stieglitz was
Georgia's most avid supporter. He
arranging shows, and sold her paintings.
Buying an "O'Keeffe" was not
only expensive, but a collector needed to
meet Stieglitz's somewhat hazy
standards for owning one. By this time she was
known only as "O'Keeffe" to
the art world. She rarely signed a
painting, but instead would sometimes
print an "OK" on the back of the
canvas. Alfred's wife divorced him in
September 1924 and he began to press
O'Keeffe into marriage. She was
reluctant to do so since they had lived together
since 1918 and had survived
the scandal, seeing no reason to marry now. She
finally gave in and they
married late in December. During the long winter months
in New York she began
to paint her very large flowers, some of her most popular
work today. She
completed her first enormous flower painting in 1924. The giant
flower
paintings were first exhibited in 1925. A Calla Lily painting would sell
for
$25,000 in 1928 and had drawn media attention to "O'Keeffe" like
never
before. O'Keeffe's financial success would finally prove to her that
an
artist could make a living with a paintbrush. In 1925 she and Stieglitz
moved to
the Shelton Hotel in New York, taking an apartment on the 30th floor
of the new
building. They would live here for 12 years. With such a
spectacular view,
Georgia began to paint the city. By 1928 O'Keeffe began
to feel the need to
travel and to find other sources for painting. The
demands of an annual show
needed new material. Friends returning from the
West with stories stimulated
Georgia's desire to see and explore new
places. Alfred had no desire to leave
New York and Lake George...he hated
change of any type. In May of 1929, Georgia
would set out by train with her
friend, Beck Strand, to Taos, New Mexico...a
trip that would forever change
her life. Georgia found that the thin, dry air
enabled her to see farther and
at times could see several approaching
thunderstorms in the distance at once.
She affectionately referred to the land
of northern New Mexico as "the
faraway", better defined as a place of
stark beauty and infinite space. Soon
after their arrival, Georgia and Beck
where invited to stay at Mable Dodge
Luhan's ranch outside of Taos for the
summer. She would go on many
backpacking trips exploring the rugged mountains
and deserts of the region.
On one trip she visited the D.H. Lawrence ranch and
spent several weeks
there. While in Taos she visited the historical mission
church at Ranchos de
Taos. Although she painted the church as many artists had
done before, her
painting of only a fragment of the mission wall silhouetted
against the dark
blue sky would portray it as no artist had before. "...I
often painted
fragments of things because it seemed to make my statement as well
as or
better than the whole could...I had to create an equivalent for what I
felt
about what I was looking at...not copy it." Being a loner, Georgia
wanted to
explore this wonderful place on her own. She bought a Model A Ford and
asked
others to teach her how to drive. After one particularly exasperating
moment,
one of her teachers declared that she was unable to learn the art of
driving.
Only her determination was to lead to mastering her machine. In her
yearly
visits to New Mexico she would travel the back roads in the Model A
ford.
O'Keeffe remodeled her vehicle. She removed the backseat, and would
unbolt the
front seat, and turned it around so that she could prop her canvas
against the
back wall of the car. Georgia would return to New Mexico, which
she considered
"her land", each summer until Stieglitz's death in 1946.
O'Keeffe
spent three years in the city settling his estate. In 1949 at the of
age 62, she
made New Mexico her permanent residence. She dividing her time
between her
summer home at Ghost Ranch and an adobe house she had renovated
in the historic
village of Abiquiu. O'Keeffe traveled internationally,
painted and continued to
enjoy her status as a supreme American artist. To
add to her accomplishments, in
1977, she received the Presidential Medal
of Freedom from Gerald R. Ford. The
final days of O'Keeffe's life were spent
in her home. She was well into her 90's
and was tired with life. One friend
stated that when visiting her had asking of
her current condition, O'Keeffe
stated "it's time for me to go.". By
this time she had lost most of her
sight, and could only hold onto her art by
sculpting and working with
ceramics. However the results were unsatisfactory to
her. As her health began
to fail, many people remarked at her solid grasp on
reality, and her calm
peace of mind. She would not make it to her 100th
birthday, she died on March
7, 1986, shortly after entering a Santa Fe hospital.
She was 98.