Georgia O'Keeffe
Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986) was an influential American modernist artist known for her bold depictions of flowers, bones, landscapes, and abstraction. Explore her life, major works, philosophy, and memorable quotes.
Introduction
Georgia Totto O’Keeffe is often called the “Mother of American Modernism” for her deeply original visual language and her willingness to reimagine the natural world in bold, stripped-down forms. Her work — whether magnified blossoms, desert bones, or sweeping landscapes of New Mexico — invites viewers to see nature through a new lens. Over a creative career spanning more than six decades, she carved out a place in art history not by following trends, but by quietly, persistently being herself.
Early Life and Family
Georgia O’Keeffe was born on November 15, 1887, on a farm near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. second of seven children born to Francis Calixtus O’Keeffe (of Irish descent) and Ida Totto (of Dutch and Hungarian heritage).
From early childhood, she showed curiosity about nature and form. Her mother, especially, encouraged her and her siblings in education and the arts. The family later moved several times — including a period in Virginia — but O’Keeffe often returned in her mind to the open vistas and organic forms of her rural youth.
Youth, Education & Artistic Beginnings
After high school, O’Keeffe enrolled at the Art Institute of Chicago (1905–1906), where she studied with John Vanderpoel.
In 1907 she went to New York and attended the Art Students League, studying with William Merritt Chase, Kenyon Cox, and others.
Still feeling constrained by strict representational training, she was drawn to a more expressive approach. In the 1910s she came under the influence of Arthur Wesley Dow, whose emphasis on composition, abstraction, and personal vision helped O’Keeffe move beyond replication toward interpretation.
Between 1911–1918, she taught art in Virginia, Texas, and South Carolina, and continued exploring her own style through charcoal drawings and abstract compositions.
Career and Achievements
Breakthrough & Her First Exhibitions
In 1916, O’Keeffe sent a set of her abstract charcoal drawings to her friend Anita Pollitzer, who showed the works to photographer and gallerist Alfred Stieglitz, who ran the influential gallery 291 in New York.
Her first solo show at 291 was in 1917, and she began splitting her time between New York and the more expansive landscapes she loved.
Signature Motifs: Flowers, Skyscrapers & Bones
O’Keeffe became most known for large-scale, close-up flower paintings, which magnified organic forms in vivid color and simplified shapes. She once said that if she painted a flower as small as it is, no one would take time to look — so she made them big.
She also turned to urban forms — New York skyscrapers, cityscapes, and architectural elements — interpreting them through her own vision of geometry and light.
Later in life, the stark desert of New Mexico became her primary muse. She painted bones, skulls, and pelvises against sky, rock formations, and desert vistas — emphasizing form, color, and emptiness.
Personal & Later Years
She married Stieglitz in 1924, following the dissolution of his previous marriage.
In 1929 O’Keeffe traveled to New Mexico and fell deeply in love with the landscape’s light, space, and forms. She began to spend summers there and eventually made it her permanent home after Stieglitz died in 1946.
As she aged, her vision declined (macular degeneration), limiting her ability to paint unaided. Her last unassisted oil painting was made in 1972, but she continued to guide assistants and remained connected with her art until late in life.
She died on March 6, 1986, in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Historical Context & Milestones
-
O’Keeffe’s career coincided with the rise of American Modernism — a shift away from European styles and toward a distinct American visual language.
-
Her early abstraction in the 1910s anticipated later developments in American abstract art.
-
Her move to New Mexico placed her within the wider narrative of artists drawn to the American Southwest (landscape, space, indigenous cultures) as a source of new imagery.
-
Her late work in minimal forms and desert motifs connected with mid-20th century trends exploring reduction, form, and space.
Legacy and Influence
Georgia O’Keeffe’s legacy is multifold:
-
She helped define an American modern art language rooted in natural forms and personal vision.
-
Her bold floral works, deserted landscapes, and skeletal forms became iconic, recognizable, and frequently referenced in popular culture and art education.
-
She remains a feminist figure in art history — a woman who insisted on her autonomy and had a long, self-directed career in a male-dominated field.
-
The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe is dedicated to preserving her work, home, studio, and legacy.
-
Her approach to scale, abstraction, and seeing “into” objects continues to inspire artists who seek to balance representation and emotional perception.
Personality, Beliefs & Artistic Philosophy
O’Keeffe wrote and spoke modestly about her motives — often emphasizing seeing, essence, and quiet transformation rather than rhetoric or manifesto.
She is quoted as saying:
“I had to create an equivalent for what I felt about what I was looking at — not copy it.”
She often resisted sensational interpretation of her floral imagery (e.g. sexual symbolism), wanting her viewers to engage with form, color, and perception directly.
Her life in New Mexico reflects her desire for solitude, connection to landscape, and focus over distractions. She valued seeing things freshly and distilling visual experience.
Famous Quotes of Georgia O’Keeffe
Here are several well-known quotes attributed to O’Keeffe:
-
“I decided that if I could paint that flower in a huge scale, you could not ignore its beauty.”
-
“When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment.”
-
“Nobody sees a flower — really — it is so small. We haven’t the time — and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.”
-
“To create one’s own world takes courage.”
-
“I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way — things I had no words for.”
These express her conviction that art is not mimicry, but translation of experience.
Lessons from Georgia O’Keeffe
From her life and work, we can draw meaningful insights:
-
See deeper, not wider
She magnified details (flowers, bones) to show what otherwise would be overlooked. -
Translate, don’t copy
Her goal was to express inner response to nature, not merely depict it. -
Work steadily, not loudly
She rarely chased publicity; she let her work speak over the years. -
Let place shape vision
New Mexico was not just a backdrop — it became a co-creator in her art. -
Value autonomy
She held to her own choices in subject, scale, and technique even when they ran counter to taste.
Conclusion
Georgia O’Keeffe’s art teaches us to slow down, to peer closely into life’s smallest things, and to reinterpret them through our own perceptual lens. She did more than paint flowers or desert bones — she reimagined how we look, inviting us to pause, see, and re-see. Her longevity, independence, and clarity of vision make her a true icon of modern art.