Biography
Georgia O'Keeffe was born on November 15, 1887, where she was the second of seven children. O'Keeffe took art lessons at home and was inspired to create artwork at a very young age.
In 1902, Georgia and her family moved to Virginia, where she graduated high school. Later that year, she went to college at the School of Art Institute of Chicago. One year later, she transfered to a different school to learn about realism.
Even though she loved painting, O'Keeffe stopped because she was convinced that she couldn't support herself through painting.
Four years later, Georgia actually went back to painting. She took summer courses for teachers in Virginia. After her teaching courses, she moved to Texas and became an art teacher in public schools. Then, in 1914, she went to New York to take classes at a Teacher's College. After finishing her teaching classes, she moved to South Carolina and started a collection of charcoal drawings. She then mailed her collection to a friend, who sent the collection to a photographer and art impresario named Alfred Stieglitz, who later exhibited her collection. The two went into business together, where Stieglitz gave O'Keeffe financial support if she would paint in New York for a year.
Stieglitz and O'Keeffe were married in 1924 and lived together in New York. When Stieglitz exhibited more of Georgia's paintings, she was considered one of the most talented artists of the century.
When Georgia's husband died, she moved to New Mexico, where she had once vacationed in 1929. Georgia loved New Mexico's beautiful and vast landscape so much that she made several collections of the scenery there. Georgia died in 1984. Her last painting was a painting of the sky, signifying that it would be her next and final destination after her death.
Georgia O'Keeffe helped America look at objects in a different way than they normally would by painting even the smallest objects in the largest and most up-close way possible.
"Nobody sees a flower - really - it is so small it takes time - we haven't time - and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time."-Georgia O'Keeffe
In the video above, Georgia O'Keeffe talks about the landscape in New Mexico and why she would paint there
The painting above is a picture of the sky. She painted this just before her death, showing that when she dies, the sky would be her next and final destination.
Why I chose Georgia O'Keeffe
I chose to research Georgia O'Keeffe because I'd always been interested in her style of painting. I love how she painted all of her flowers on enormous canvases, and painted them extremely up close. I wanted to learn why she painted this way and what motivated her to paint. Therefore, I decided to research her
