11/16/2022
Today is Georgia O'Keeffe's 135th birthday!
Born on November 15, 1887, on a dairy farm in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, Georgia Totto O'Keeffe was the second of seven children. At a young age, O'Keeffe was drawn to art, telling a friend in 1899, “I am going to be an artist.” She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Students League in New York, where she learned traditional techniques. In her 20’s, O’Keeffe went on to teach art in West Texas and began developing her unique artistic voice, creating a seminal series of charcoal abstractions.
In 1915, O'Keeffe mailed some of these charcoal abstract drawings to her friend Anita Pollitzer in New York City, who showed them to Alfred Stieglitz. Stieglitz, a renowned photographer and art dealer, became the first to exhibit her work in 1916 at his gallery ‘291.’ O’Keeffe and Stieglitz developed a passionate relationship and were married in 1924.
By the mid-1920s, O'Keeffe was recognized as one of America's most important and successful modern artists, known for her bold depictions of flowers as well as her unique paintings of New York skyscrapers. In the summer of 1929, O'Keeffe made the first of many trips to northern New Mexico. For the next two decades, she spent most summers living and working in New Mexico, finding inspiration in the desert landscapes. In 1949, she made the state her permanent home.
Late in life, with failing vision, she enlisted several assistants to help her create art. In these works, she drew on favorite motifs from memory and her vivid imagination. In 1977, O’Keeffe received the Medal of Freedom from President Ford. Georgia O'Keeffe died in Santa Fe on March 6, 1986, at the age of 98.
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Richard Pritzlaff. Georgia O'Keeffe at Sapello Ranch, 1980. color photograph, 7 x 5. Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. Gift of The Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation. [2006.6.968]
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