By
Jean Greenhill
June 3, 2009
Georgia O’Keeffe
Georgia O’Keeffe was an American artist who lived from November 15, 1887 until March 6, 1986. Ms O’Keeffe became interest in art at an early age, and was pushed by her parents because they saw that she had a talent. She studied at various schools in her early life, which helped form her style. After moving to New York in 1916 she met Alfred Stieglitz whom she later married. Later years in her life she moved to New Mexico where she found a lot of her inspiration for her paintings. Ms. O’Keeffe has been a major figure in American art since the 1920’s
Early on in life Ms. O’Keeffe’s mother made her and her sisters attend art classes. Because her parents thought she did so well, they suggested that she attend art school to further her studies. In 1905 she enrolled at the school of the Art Institute of Chicago. She later attended the Art Students League in New York under William Merritt Chase. For her oil painting mona shehab (Dead Rabbit with Copper Pot) she won the League’s William Merritt Chase still life prize. Ms. O’Keeffe felt her work was “unoriginal” so she quit school and destroyed all the work she had completed as a student. She then worked as a freelance commercial artist for a few years, and then decided to become a teacher leaving her spare time to paint. She took off a year from teaching to attend Columbia University in New York and studied under Arthur Dow where she began to feel her personal style develop.
She sent numerous abstract pictures to a friend Anita Pollitzer, who then showed them to Alfred Stieglitz. After seeing her work Mr. Stieglitz thought her work was the “purest, finest, sincerest things that had entered the 291 gallery in a long while. Her first solo show opened at 291 in April 1917, most of the exhibit was the watercolors from Texas. By July Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O’Keeffe fell deeply in love. He left his wife and lived with O’Keeffe and after