Nicole Cueli
FYS 135- Women in Art
Leader of Modernist Art Throughout the decades art has escalated from simplistic male only dominated art to an array of art types and an abundance of well renown male and female artists. One of which style of art which has revolutionized different aspects in all other art forms is modernism. One leading modernist Georgia O’Keeffe who was also seen as the first female modernist who also played a pivotal role in the development of American Modernism and its relationship with European leading movements of the early 20th century. Georgia O’Keeffe is one of America’s preeminent modernist painters amongst the art world and without her much of the art we take for granted now, we would most likely not have been introduced to or introduced in such a way as she had done for us. Georgia O’Keeffe was born on November 15th 1887, in a farmhouse on a large dairy farm just outside of Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. Where she spent most of her young childhood until she moved to Williamsburg, Virginia. Fortunately unlike other girls of this time O’Keeffe came from a family where female education was a tradition, and without her education she would not have had the opportunities she was presented with. Modernism in art usually associated with the portrayal of cultural movements in the late 19th the mid 20th century. Many artists veered away from the traditionally taught concepts and techniques of painting that had been practiced and valued since the Renaissance time period, which was art already seen with great pride and to stray away from such a enlightened art form was not only risky but also looked down upon and seen as radical. At a young age Georgia O’Keeffe already knew she wanted to be a painter, with her mom influencing and supporting her with her hopes and dreams. By the ago if six in 1902 O’Keeffe had received five years of art training at various schools. By 1905 O’Keeffe graduated high school and attended the Institute of Chicago but only shortly after did O’Keeffe join the art students league in New York in 1907 where she studied under American painter William Merritt Chase. While attending an this art school While studying under Chase, O’Keeffe painted a piece called Dead Rabbit with Copper Pot where she won the League’s William Merritt Chase still-life prize for her usage of oil paint in 1908. About four years later O’Keeffe moved to Amarillo, Texas where she held the role of supervisor of drawing and penmanship until the spring of 1914, where she then moved and enrolled herself into the Teacher’s College Columbia University. At the Teacher’s College Columbia she studied under the instruction of Arthur Dow, whom will soon have a great impact of the artistry of O’Keeffe. Arthur Dow was a specialist in oriental art. Dow’s interest in non-European art helped O’Keefe move away from the forms she had found to suffocating in her years of study of art. Unlike any kind of instructional teachings given to her before as guidelines to drawing Dow taught with a theory of self exploration through art. This theory taught O’Keeffe how to paint what she felt and not just the object she was observing. With this newly formed theory of drawing O’Keeffe threw out old habit such as oil paint and moved to charcoal. Georgia O’Keeffe started with taking natural forms such as waves, flowers and clouds and began simple charcoal drawings that simplified the objects into expressive and abstract combinations of shapes and lines. One of many charcoal drawings was labeled Banana Flower No.1, one of which she sent to her friend Anita Pollitzer. Although, little did O’Keeffe known that these simplistic charcoal drawings will soon open her horizons to new art and knowledge. After sending some of her newly experimented charcoal drawings to her friend Anita Pollitzer in New York and being so intrigued by the new exquisite work, she brought these pieces to the attention of Alfred Stieglitz in January of 1916. Stieglitz was a great proponent to European and American modernism. He was a well known photographer known by many and who also owned his on gallery named ‘291 Gallery.’ Within his gallery work he had introduced revolutionizing artists such as Matisse and Picasso to an American audience, and after that he shifted his attention to younger American modernist artists such as O’Keeffe which he believed would also have a major impact on American artistry. Without the knowledge of O’Keeffe, Stieglitz displayed ten of her pieces she sent to friend Anita Pollitzer in an exhibit he was holding in his gallery in 1916. The exhibit portrayed artists new style of art with O’Keeffe being a top candidate. After her art pieces being a main attraction at the gallery exhibit Alfred Stieglitz became enamored of O’Keeffe and he offered her financial support for one year to come to New York to paint. So by the age of thirty she gave up teaching and solely committed her life to being and artist and moved in with Stieglitz in New York. They worked hand in hand with one another, helping each other out in aspects of artistry. With Stieglitz own professional expertise he had a major impact on the aiding on the impact of her work. Throuout their commitment in art with one another Stieglitz vigorously promoted her work by showing het pieces in his galley exhibits and also giving her one-man shows. This not only benefited O’keeffe but Stieglitz as well. With working in such close quarters, nothing but the most obvious occurred a typical love affair between O’Keeffe and Stieglitz, and by 1929 the two married and had their permanent residence together in New York. After their marriage Stieglitz introduced Georgia to his close circle of friends who were champions of the modernism artists in the United States one of which including photographer Paul Strand. Strand along with other modernist such as Alfred Stieglitz helped to establish photography as an art form in the 20th century. Strands worked for many beliefs, causes, and tool for social reform. O’Keeffe was greatly drawn to the style of Strands photography. She was mostly drawn to how Strand incorporated the cameras ability to act like a magnifying glass throughout his photography, by having a scenery but emphasizing the center and having a pop-like aspect to the object being mainly portrayed. Therefore being so immersed by his capability of manipulating the camera in such a way O’Keeffe switched to large-scale paintings of natural forms at a close range and switched to oil paint for a more expressive color to be depicted and felt. She then started to included architecture to her slim variety of painting types, such as New York skyscrapers and other tall industrial building; veering away for her normal flower and simplistic objects. Although the city’s geometry inspired some of O’Keeffe’s strongest compositions she was most completely taken by the natural and organic shapes and colors seen within landscapes. With her fascination with landscape O’Keeffe made time every year to make a retreat to nature where she would then find a wide variety and range of colors and forms of work to paint. Her first naturalistic place in which O’Keeffe frequently worked with landscape was Lake George(1920s) where she created a large number of ‘quiet, soft-focused’ paintings. In 1929 O’Keeffe made her first jaunt to Taos, New Mexico; mean while by this time she was not as familiar with the organic landscape scenery of Lake George which had started to become increasingly man-mad city being built within her lake district. Which Lake George was once just full of pure naturalistic bliss which she then became abject to do to the new change and was suppressed by its once standing beautiful longevity. Unlike Lake George, New Mexico had a vastly different terrain that what she was used to visiting and painting. New Mexico offered a seemingly endless number of natural wonders which she was drawn to in which she would work with in her art. This new land provided the invigorating inspiration that O’Keeffe was so desperately in need of. O’Keeffe had then changed her style of art once again she changed her scale and big drawings in order to match the massive mountains she was using as her objective and she also changed her colors in order to match the rusty brown and dark reds in which surrounded her. This short short trip last just long enough to impact her life and forever CHANGE her long lasting style. O’Keeffe being so fascinated with the new land bought two pieces of property in Abiquiu, New Mexico. For the next twenty year (1929-1949) O’Keeffe traveled west from New York to New Mexico where she spent six months of every year painting her new engulfing scenery. Alfred and O’Keeffe still worked hand in hand, when she would come back during the winter she would bring her new fruits of labor to Stieglitz where he would exhibit in his gallery. O’Keeffe had became so enamored with the New Mexico landscape of barren land, vast skies, and DISTINCTIVE architectural forms and the bones she found within the desert lands. After Alfred’s death in 1946 O’Keeffe made her new permanent residence in Abiquiu in 1949. This was Georgia’s last and final move and this is where she spent the next thirty-seven years of her life and where she based her art. While in her time in living in Abiquiu O’Keeffe had drastically changed her art from her oil paints, to water colors, to charcoal, and then to bright eccentric paints.