Georgia O’Keeffe was an American painter of the early twentieth century whose main focus of work was captured on the emotion and power of objects through abstracting the natural world. She was one of seven, born in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin in 1887. Although her paintings consisted of mainly oil paints, she also worked with watercolors, pencil, and clay and was also considered one of the greatest American artists of the twentieth century. O’Keeffe was encouraged by her mother to start the study of art and started with lessons from a local artist, Sara Mann, who taught her how to paint with the use of watercolors. In 1905 she attended the School of Art Institute of Chicago where she studied with John Vanderpoel for one year. After Chicago she …show more content…
Stieglitz later on exhibited ten of her charcoal drawings at his gallery, which began their professional relationship leading to solo exhibitions and a marriage in 1924. Stieglitz introduced O’Keeffe to his friends who were also artists called “the Stieglitz Circle” where she was influenced by all, but mostly interested by the photography of Paul Strand, which lead her to switch from watercolors to oil paint and began producing large-scale paintings of natural forms. In addition to her famous flower paintings she also enjoyed painting New York skyscrapers along with other architectural forms, and landscapes of New Mexico. O’Keeffe’s popularity was growing greatly throughout the years and was honored with two important retrospectives. The first was in 1942 at the Art Institute of Chicago, the second in 1946 at the Museum of Modern Art, and later on in 1970 the Whitney Museum of American Art. Along with her retrospectives, O’Keeffe received many awards in her later years, such as membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Medal of Freedom, and the National Medal of Arts. At the age of eighty-four she had lost her central vision, but that did not stop her from creating artwork until the day she died in 1986.
Georgia O’Keeffe is perceived as a modern American feminist who works hard and enjoys what she is doing. O’Keeffe was always traveling from state to state working with new artists and attending new schools. She wasn’t afraid to take on new tasks and challenges and when she did she achieved them. I believe she can be considered an inspiration for all woman artists and for those who are not artists, as