Georgia O'Keeffe played a pivotal role in the development of American modernism and its relationship to European avante garde movements of the early twentieth century. Producing a substantial body of work over seven decades, she sought to capture the emotion and power of objects through abstracting the natural world. Alfred Stieglitz identified her as the first female American modernist, whose paintings of flowers, barren landscapes, and close-up still lifes have become a part of the mythology and iconography of the American artistic landscape. O'Keeffe incorporated the techniques of other artists and was especially influenced by Paul Strand's use of cropping in his photographs; she was one of the first artists to adapt the method to painting by rendering close-ups of uniquely American objects that were highly detailed yet abstract. O'Keeffe did not follow any specific artistic movement, but like Arthur Dove she experimented with abstracting motifs from nature. She worked in series, synthesizing abstraction and realism to produce works that emphasized the primary forms of nature. While some of these works are highly detailed, in others, she stripped away what she considered the inessential to focus on shape and colour. Through intense observation of nature, experimentation with scale, and nuanced use of line and colour, O'Keeffe's art remained grounded in representation even while pushing at its limits. From the 1940s through the 1960s in particular, O'Keeffe's art was outside the mainstream as she was one of the few artists to adhere to representation in a period when others were exploring non-representation or had abandoned painting altogether. Georgia O'Keeffe was born near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin in 1887, the second of seven children. She received early encouragement to study art from her mother and took watercolor lessons from a local artist, Sara Mann. O'Keeffe came from a family where female education was stressed and she was fortunate to attend the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from 1905 to 1906 where she studied with John Vanderpoel. In the fall of 1907, O'Keeffe moved to New York City and attended classes at the Art Students League, studying under the artist-teacher William Merritt Chase. A prize she won for one of her still lifes, allowed her to attend the League's summer school in Lake George, New York. While in NYC, she frequented exhibitions at Gallery 291, which was owned by photographer Alfred Stieglitz and was one of the few places in the United States where European avant-garde art was exhibited. For the first time O'Keeffe was exposed to popular European artists, such as Auguste Rodin and Henri Matisse. She abandoned the pursuit of art as a career in 1908 for four years, taking a job in Chicago as a commercial artist. She began focusing on her art again in 1912, after attending a drawing class at the University of Virginia's summer school. Her teacher, Alon Bement, professed an innovative teaching style that was heavily influenced by the artist Arthur Wesley Dow. While teaching at Columbia College in South Carolina in 1915, O'Keeffe began to experiment with Dow's theory of self-exploration through art. She took natural forms, such as ferns, clouds, and waves, and began a small series of charcoal drawings that simplified them into expressive, abstracted combinations of shapes and lines. After completing this series, O'Keeffe mailed a few of them to her friend Anita Pollitzer, a former classmate, who brought the drawings to the attention of Alfred Stieglitz in January 1916. The subjects O'Keeffe painted were taken from life and related either generally or specifically to the places where she had been. Through her art she explored the minute details of a setting's or an object's physical appearance and thereby came to know it even better. Often her pictures convey a highly subjective impression of an image, although it is depicted in a straightforward and realistic manner. Such subjective interpretations were frequently colored by important events in the artist's personal and professional life. Their impact on her work was often unconscious, as the artist acknowledged late in life: 'I find that I have painted my life - things happening in my life- without knowing.' |