O'Keeffe her first gallery show in 1916. The two then married in 1924. After her husbands sudden death O'Keeffe moved to New Mexico where she was inspired by the landscape, which resulted in her creating numerous well-known paintings. Georgia O'Keeffe died on March 6, 1986 at the age of 98.
O'Keeffe played a vital role in the development of American modernism and its relationship to European avante garde movements of the early twentieth century. By Producing a substantial amount of paintings over seven decades, she was able to capture the emotion of objects and nature through abstracting the natural world. O'Keeffe's art was different from the dominant style, for as she was one of the few artists who used representation in a period where others were exploring non-representation or had abandoned the idea of painting altogether. Her paintings of flowers, and barren landscapes, gave her the representation of the "mother of American modernism”. American Modernism is an artistic and cultural movement in the United States beginning at the turn of the 20th century, with a core period between World War I and World War II.
One of her earliest pieces is called the Music Pink and Blue.
This was an oil painting, that was created during O'Keeffe's early exploration of abstraction. For many vanguard artists in the early twentieth century, music offered a model for expressing nonverbal emotional states. I think that by creating this piece of art Georgia O'Keeffe was conveying the idea that music could be translated into something for the eye, therefor the nodule, wavy forms imply a connection between the visual and the audible, while also suggesting the rhythms and harmonies that O’Keeffe perceived in nature. In 1958, O'Keeffe painted Ladder to the Moon. The painting shows a handmade wooden ladder suspended in the turquoise sky. In the background are the pitch black perennial Mountains and a pearl colored half moon. Like the piece Music Pink and Blue it is a oil painting however her earlier painting consists of pastel colors that blend into each other, rather than the dark separated colors found in Ladder to the Moon. This painting was very similar to a picture taken of O'Keeffe and her surroundings at Ghost Ranch so, she was inspired by an image unlike a feeling in wich she used to create many art pieces in her early years as an artist. This painting also symbolizes something and carries a message to its viewer rather than a strong
feeling.
I personally prefer her early artwork, where she defied the current artistic period and created a style in which spoke to her. I liked these abstracted pieces because instead of using Fauvism and Expressionism she used bright pastel colors to convey emotion and moved viewers to imagine certain things. Although I very much enjoy her paintings of flowers I feel as if she conveyed the same message in most of these paintings. Her smooth wavy strokes resemble the images she paints and provides the fabrication of texture in ones mind. Which for me is what art should do. Her paintings are joyful and brighten the emotion of whomever is looking at them. I also like that she does not use harsh contrasting colors like other artists do. It allows the colors to flow together in harmony almost like a song, something she was often inspired by. Her later work revolved more around realism which changed the tone of her artwork. I did not care that much about these pieces for they did not make me feel any true emotion upon looking at them.