Kate Kastelein - Biography of Georgia OKeeffe

When she was 10 years old, Georgia OKeeffe decided she was going to be an artist, and she sure did. She went on to become the most celebrated and prolific female artist of the 20th century.

Georgia OKeeffe is known for her close up paintings of flowers as well as her portrayal of New Mexicos landscape. Her juxtaposition of thematic symbols such as skulls, flowers, and landscapes brought much critical acclaim. She is a pioneer of American abstract art and is renowned for advancing the status of women in art.

Her iconic close up pictures of flowers and desert landscapes of New Mexico are immediately identifiable. The bright bold colors of her pallet and abstract depiction of everything from bones and flowers to Manhattan are like nothing else in the art world. Since she rose to fame in 1916, OKeefe has become a household name, and a beloved painter.

Blue and Green Music, Georgia OKeeffe image via Wikipedia Commons

Its a feat in itself that Georgia OKeeffe rose to fame in a time when there were few women American art scene. At the time she started showing her works in New York, art education for women was severely lacking.

OKeeffe understood at a fairly young age, that painting might be the only way for a woman at that time to enjoy a solitary lifestyle. One where she was free to be alone with her thoughts, and not be thought odd for doing so. The New York Times reported, One day,' Miss O'Keeffe recalled in later years, I found myself saying to myself, 'I can't live where I want to. I can't even say what I want to. I decided I was a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted to.''

Though OKeeffes work is most often associated with the American southwest, and specifically New Mexico, she spent years in Manhattan and created a number of works featuring various New York City buildings in her signature abstract style.

Her paintings were unlike anything being done at the time. One might include a horse skull hovering in the sky over a mountain. Traditional perspective did not matter to her. OKeefe might use an entire canvas to depict the curve within the base of an eye socket from a cow skull.

She was a dedicated and focused artist, who did whatever it took to complete her vision.

Miss O'Keeffe was strong-willed, hard-working and whimsical. She would wrap herself in a blanket and wait, shivering, in the cold dark for a sunrise to paint; would climb a ladder to see the stars from a roof, and hop around in her stockings on an enormous canvas to add final touches before all the paint dried. - The New York Times

Though some associate OKeeffes focused paintings of flowers with female genitalia, OKeeffe firmly denied the association. TheNew York Times reported, O'Keeffe, though she posed willingly for the photographers' studies of her nude form, always insisted that her paintings' sexual attributes existed only in the minds of their beholders.

OKeefe proved her meteoric rise to fame was not a fluke, and remained the top female painter in the country until her death in 1986. The New York Times said her career, embraced virtually the whole history of modern art.

Though she had set her sights on becoming an artist early in life, and went on to achieve that goal, there was a time when she gave up painting altogether. If it hadnt been for a few chance circumstances, the world might have missed out on this great talent.

On November 15, 1887, in their Sun Prairie Wisconsin farmhouse, Francis Calyxtus O'Keeffe and Ida Totto O'Keeffe welcomed their daughter Georgia into the world. She was second child and first daughter for the couple, who went on to have five more children.

OKeeffe started her art career at a very early age. Around the same time she proclaimed her intentions to become a writer at age 10, she and her sister started classes with a local water color artist.

It is remarkable that her parents, Wisconsin dairy farmers were able and willing to support their young daughters aspirations at a time when their were few opportunities for women at all, let alone in the art world.

Though her family moved from Wisconsin to Virginia during her sophomore year she stayed with her aunt for a year before joining her family and finishing high school in Williamsburg.

Art instruction for women was not very common in the early 1900s, but OKeeffe was able to take classes at School of the Art Institute of Chicago for a year. She then went to New York and received instruction from the Art Students League. During this time, OKeefe was studying the mimetic type of painting, where the artist tries to mimic their subject by painting it exactly as it is seen.

The mimetic style was far from the abstract style that would later make her famous, but OKeeffe demonstrated exceptional ability to imitate her subject on a canvas. She won the William Merritt Chase prize for her still life Dead Rabbit With Copper Pot.

Georgia OKeeffe in 1915, at the University of Virginia. Photo via Wikipedia Commons

During her time in New York City, OKeeffe went to a Rodin exhibit at the gallery 291. The owner of 291, Alfred Stieglitz would later not only change her life forever by showing her works, but would also become her husband.

Shortly after, OKeeffe gave up on her career saying she had known then that she could never achieve distinction working within this tradition. OKeeffe didnt pick up a brush for four years.

OKeeffe stayed active in the art world while she wasnt painting, and picked up some commercial art jobs, and also continued her education. While taking summer classes at the University of Virginia Summer School, she attended a class on Arthur Wesley Dow taught by Alon Bement. Dow believed that the goal of art was the expression of the artist's personal ideas and feelings and that such subject matter was best realized through harmonious arrangements of line, color, and notan (the Japanese system of lights and darks), says the George OKeefe Museum.

For the next two years, she continued learning about Dows artistic philosophy and took classes from him directly, as well as continuing classes with Bement. While experimenting with these new ideas and style, OKeeffe created numerous charcoal drawings.

Initially, it was these charcoal drawings, and not the painting she was later recognized for that got the attention of the art scene in New York City.

After deciding to re-enter the art world, she mailed some of her charcoal drawings to her friend Anna Pollitzer in New York City. Pollitzer took the drawings to the owner of 291 Arthur Stieglitz. He was thrilled with the works, and recognized OKeeffes unique talent. He immediately started showing her works.

Gallery 291 was a premier gallery in the New York art scene at the time, and showed works from masters such like Henri Matisse, Auguste Rodin, Paul Czanne, Pablo Picasso, and Marcel Duchamp. Despite the high profile of the gallery, OKeeffe was furious that Steiglitz had put up her works without telling her first, Miss O'Keeffe stormed up from Texas and upbraided Stieglitz for showing her work without her permission. His answer was to persuade her to move to New York, abandon her teaching and devote herself to painting. said The New York Times.

After t heir first encounter in 1916, OKeefe went on to form a professional and personal relationship with Stieglitz which lasted until his death in 1946. A year after their first meeting, Stieglitz arranged for OKeeffes first one woman show. It featured paintings as well as her charcoal drawings and met with great critical success.