Life and Art of Georgia O'Keeffe
O’Keeffe
Most high art seems to be about death or sex. Throughout her struggle to elevate herself in a man’s world, painter Georgia O’Keeffe struggled a lifetime with these charges attached to her works. O’Keeffe is most known for her enlarged flower paintings and desert scenes rooted in public ideology of the female sexual organs, and bones as death. However, the true intent behind her works is nothing more than to present her world in a beautiful way. Georgia O’Keeffe is a female great American painter that is first and foremost an expressive artist; not a sex symbol, not an angry feminist.
Originally O’Keeffe was a humble art teacher in Texas studying under Arthur Dow. She affectionately referred to him as “Pa Dow,” in her later years when writing about her works in letters (Greenough). O’Keeffe prescribed to the Dow Theory of art because he was solely focused on filling the canvas beautifully with line, color and form as opposed to copying the European “greats” and prescribing to “copyist” art. Arthur Dow and other Japanese prints and Zen cultures contributed largely to her work. Much of her simplicity of composition is attributed to the ying-yang teachings of Asian influence. O’Keeffe sent charcoal drawings prescribing to this ideology of compositional emotion to a friend who passed them on to a well-known gallery owner in New York, Alfred Stieglitz. This later lead to the first gallery showing of O’Keeffe’s work without her knowing…
Gallery 291 was at the forefront of modern art in New York introducing artists such as Cezanne, Matisse, and Picasso; and Stieglitz’s gallery did a lot to add Georgia’s name to the list of great American painters. Their lives were intertwined when she first accepted Stieglitz as a benefactor asking her to paint in New York for one year. They were married shortly after and spearheaded the modernist age of art until Stieglitz’s death in 1949. Unfortunately, he also launched her career as a sexual being in his personal gallery
Most high art seems to be about death or sex. Throughout her struggle to elevate herself in a man’s world, painter Georgia O’Keeffe struggled a lifetime with these charges attached to her works. O’Keeffe is most known for her enlarged flower paintings and desert scenes rooted in public ideology of the female sexual organs, and bones as death. However, the true intent behind her works is nothing more than to present her world in a beautiful way. Georgia O’Keeffe is a female great American painter that is first and foremost an expressive artist; not a sex symbol, not an angry feminist.
Originally O’Keeffe was a humble art teacher in Texas studying under Arthur Dow. She affectionately referred to him as “Pa Dow,” in her later years when writing about her works in letters (Greenough). O’Keeffe prescribed to the Dow Theory of art because he was solely focused on filling the canvas beautifully with line, color and form as opposed to copying the European “greats” and prescribing to “copyist” art. Arthur Dow and other Japanese prints and Zen cultures contributed largely to her work. Much of her simplicity of composition is attributed to the ying-yang teachings of Asian influence. O’Keeffe sent charcoal drawings prescribing to this ideology of compositional emotion to a friend who passed them on to a well-known gallery owner in New York, Alfred Stieglitz. This later lead to the first gallery showing of O’Keeffe’s work without her knowing…
Gallery 291 was at the forefront of modern art in New York introducing artists such as Cezanne, Matisse, and Picasso; and Stieglitz’s gallery did a lot to add Georgia’s name to the list of great American painters. Their lives were intertwined when she first accepted Stieglitz as a benefactor asking her to paint in New York for one year. They were married shortly after and spearheaded the modernist age of art until Stieglitz’s death in 1949. Unfortunately, he also launched her career as a sexual being in his personal gallery
Bibliography: Greenough, Sarah. Georgia O 'Keeffe Art and Letters. Boston: Bulfinch Press, 1981. Print. "Gegorgia O 'Keeffe and her paintings." georgiaokeeffe.net. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Jun 2013. <http://www.georgiaokeeffe.net/> "Georgia O 'Keeffe." Women in History. N.Y., 28 05 2013. Web. 28 5 2013. <http://www.lkwdpl.org/wihohio/okee-geo.htm>. Hassrick, Peter. The Georgia O 'Keeffe Museum. New York: Harry N. Abrams Inc., 1997. Print. Lynes, Barbara. Georgia O 'Keeffe Museum Collections. New York, NY: Harry N. Abrams Inc., 2007.Print. Turner, Elizabeth. Georgia O 'Keeffe The Poetry of Things. London: Yale University Press, Print.