WHAT TO INCLUDE IN THE ART REVIEW:

  Title, year, size, medium used.  Where you found the painting.  

1. Describe the painting. What variety do you see in the lines, shapes, forms and textures?  What is the color plan? 
2. Analyze how the principles of design are used to organize the art elements.
3. What do you feel O’Keeffe was expressing?  What is the mood of the work?
4. Explain why you like the painting.  Do you base your opinion on realism, emotionalism , or on formalism (design)?  

GEORGIA O’KEEFFE

THE YOUNG ARTIST

Georgia O’Keeffe was an American artist who was born in 1887 and died in 1986 at the age of 98. O’Keeffe is mostly known for her abstractions of flowers and other nature.   She also painted New York Skyscrapers, but seldom painted people or animals.  From the

following information you will learn how a woman artist made her way at a time when very few women were known for their artwork.

Georgia was born and grew up on a farm in Wisconsin. She spent much of her time outside exploring. She liked to feel everything she saw.  She even tasted dirt.  She loved  nature and saw beauty where others might not.  She began drawing whatever she saw at an early age.

When she was 12 years old she knew she wanted to be an artist.

"...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.”

Her mother encouraged her by insisting that she take private art lessons.

Goergia was not a typical teenager.  She dressed and acted differently from the other students. She also had her own ideas about how to create art.  What she saw as she looked at things was not necessarily what others saw.  Still she was admired for her independence.  By age 17 Georgia was already an accomplished artist. 

GEORGIA’S CAREER BEGINS

        After high school, she studied art at the Art Institute in Chicago and at the Art Student Leaque in New York City.  From 1908-1914 Georgia was rather unsettled.  She tried several paths in her career.  Her father’s financial situation was not good.  To help her family, she  worked as a commercial artist.  There was a period of time when she was discouraged with her art and didn’t paint at all.  For a few years she was an art teacher and on and off she continued to take art classes herself.  When she taught at Columbia College in South Carolina, she had more time to devote to painting.  She started to brake away from what she was taught to paint and began to paint what she felt.

   Evening Star, 1917

A  friend of Georgia’s showed some of her work to Alfred Stieglitz who was a well known photographer.  Stieglitz was very impressed with her work.  He is known to have said, “At last!”  A woman on paper.”  Stieglitz owned an important art gallery on Fifth Avenue in New York City.  Here he showcased unconventional artists.  Georgia had visited the gallery when she attended college in New York.  She always enjoyed the gallery.  Now Stieglitz began to show her work.

     Abstraction IX                                Orange and Red Streak, 1919

In the 1920’s people were not used to a woman artist, especially one who was unconventional.  People probably expected women to paint realistic flowers or other delicate things.

GEORGIA AND STIEGLITZ MARRY

In 1924 Georgia and Stieglitz were married.  Stieglitz found Georgia to be a very beautiful woman and she became one of his favorite models.  There are about 500 portraits of her.  Georgia was amazed with New York City and the power and technology that she saw around her.  She painted a series of New York skyscrapers.

City Night,  1926                East River from the Shelton #12

At this time she also began to paint the large flowers that she is most known for.  When people first saw these paintings, they were puzzled and didn’t understand why she painted the large abstracted shapes with the bold colors.  Georgia didn’t like that poeple didn’t understand her work.

"Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not." 

Red Canna, 1923                                White Iris

GEORGIA FINDS A SECOND HOME IN NEW MEXICO

Georgia’s life in New York was very glamorous.  She was a successful artist married to a famous photographer.  By 1929, however, Georgia wanted more privacy and she missed the wide open spaces she was used to when she grew up in Wisconsin.  When a friend invited her to spend the summer in New Mexico, she was eager to go.  She loved the hills, deserts, and skies of the Southwest.  It was here that Georgia’s work took a very dramatic change.  She began to paint what she saw in the deserts of New Mexico.  Instead of large boldly colored flowers, she now began to paint bones, skulls, and desert hills.  Her work became more abstract.  She would isolate and enlarge forms until they were almost unrecognizable.  A good example of this is Pelvis, Red with Yellow.

  Pelvis, Red and Yellow 1945

   Georgia felt so at home in New Mexico that she began to live part of the year in New Mexico and part in New York with Stieglitz.  Although Stieglitz did not like Georgia to be gone for long periods, he understood that she needed to be in New Mexico to continue her painting.

Georgia lived at Ghost Ranch which is 120 miles north of Albuquerque.  She purchased a house with a view of Pedernal Mountain.

                   Red Hills and Pedernal

"It's my private mountain, It belongs to me. God told me if I painted it enough, I could have it." 

Georgia explored New Mexico by going on pack trips.  Later, she bought a Model A Ford and would traveled the back roads.  Her car became her art studio.  She removed the back seat and proped her canvas against the back wall of the car.  As Georgia explored, she collected dry white animal bones she found scattered over the desert.

"The bones seem to cut sharply to the center of something that is keenly alive on the desert even tho' it is vast and empty and untouchable...and knows no   kindness with all it's beauty."    

Cow Skull with Calico Roses, 1931       Photograph by Alfred Stieglitz

STIEGLITZ DIES

In 1946, Stieglitz died.  Georgia  inherited his estate and along with it, the responsibility of cataloging his works and finding suitable institutions for his photography and writings.  Stieglitz had taken care of business details for Georgia.  Now she would do the same for him.

"For me he was much more wonderful in his work than as a human being...I believe it was the work that kept me with him...though I loved him as a human being...I put up with what seemed to me a good deal of contradictory nonsense because of what seemed clear and bright and wonderful."

  It took 3 winters for Georgia to settle Stieglitz’ estate.  When finished, she made New Mexico her permanent home.  She returned to New Mexico and withdrew from the limelight.  In the 50’s the art world changed.  Georgia’s art was no longer in fashion and she faded from the limelight.  During the spring dust storms she began to travel to many parts of the world.

In 1962 Georgia was elected to the 50 member American Academy of Arts and Letters—the nations highest honor society for people in the arts.  In the 70’s people took a renewed interest in her work and her popularity skyrocketed.  When Georgia was 84, she began losing her eyesight.  By 1972, she had to quit painting.

Canyon Country,  1964                  It was Blue and Green,  1960

LATER YEARS

Soon after Georgia lost her eyesight, she hired a young potter, Juan Hamilton, to do odd jobs.  He became a close friend and her business manager.  Georgia also created pottery and installed a kiln at her ranch.  During this time, she became more open to the public and did interviews.  In 1976 Juan helped her write a book about her art and she also agreed to allow a film crew to do a documentary about her and her life on Ghost Ranch.

Georgia continued to live on Ghost Ranch until her late 90’s.  She moved to Santa Fe where she died at the age of 98.  She was cremated and from Pedernal Mountain Juan scattered her ashes over the land she loved and  had called home for over 40 years.

   Black Rock, 1970

Sources Used:

http://www.ellensplace.net/okeeffe1.html

http://www.csuchico.edu/~jackieh/citizen/g-o.html

http://www.michelangelo.com/okeeffe/index-ns.html

http://happyshadows.com/okeeffe/

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/O/okeefe.html

http://www.hallkidsfiction.com/biographies/131.shtml

Vaccaro, Tony.  “Georgia O’Keeffe, Working with Abstraction.” Scholastic

       Art Feb. 98: 2-7.

“Georgia O’Keeffe, Abstracting from Nature.”  Art & Man 

        Mar. 89: 2-7.

http://cincinnati.com/travel/stories/050299_okeeffe.html

http://www.johnny.moped.btinternet.co.uk/artisdead/modernartists/okeeffe/artisdead_modernartists_okeeffe.html

GEORGIA O’KEEFFE
Review Sheet


1. Explain how O’keeffe became interested in nature.

2. As a child what did O’keeffe do on her own that led to her being an artist?

3. Which of the following best describe O’keeffe? (circle three)    

       Private      shy     independent    cautious     awkward     adventurous

4. After O’keeffe grew up, did she have a clear idea of what she wanted her art to be?

5. What word best describes the style of most of O’keeffe’s paintings?

6. In the early twenties, the public was shocked and confused when they saw O’keeffe’s
    paintings. Explain why.

7. What did O’keeffe want people to notice when she painted flowers?

8. Georgia had an exciting life in New York. Why did she prefer living in New Mexico?

9. In the painting, Pelvis, Red and Yellow, is the positive or the negative part the most
    important part of the composition?

10. Explain how you think O’keeffe felt about the country in New Mexico.

11. Why was O’keeffe interested in painting bones?

12. Explain how Cow Skull with Calico Roses symbolizes O'keeffe's two worlds.

13. How did O’keeffe’s life change after Stieglitz died?

14. Explain why O’keeffe’s paintings were not always popular.

15. At age 86 O’keeffe was too blind to paint. Explain how she continued to be active.