Georgia O Keeffe

Georgia O’ Keeffe is one of the most significant artists of the twentieth century. Her artwork is very distinct and detailed. Without her, modern art would not be what it is today. She is well known for her paintings of landscapes and images of bones against the desert sky. She was born on November 15, 1887 and was the second child out of seven children. Georgia O’ Keeffke was born and raised on a farm in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. She developed a love for art at a very young age, so much so that she studied at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1905 – 11906 as well as the Art Students League in New York from 1907 – 1908. She studied with artists such as William Merritt Chase, F. Luis Mora, and Kenyon Cox, in which she learned the techniques of traditional realist painting. However, in 1912, her artistic direction changed dramatically when she studied with Arthur Wesley Dow.

While she taught art in South Carolina and Texas, she was experimenting with the new ideas she had learned. She wanted to find her own personal style, so in 1915 she began working on a collection of abstract charcoal drawings that represented her breaking tradition. She was one of the first artist in America to truly practice abstract art. Later on, O’ Keeffe sent some of her abstract works an associate in New York, who then presented them to Alfred Stieglitz, an art dealer and photographer. He admired them and in 1916 he was the first to exhibit O’ Keeffe’s work. Later on, Alfred Stieglitz became Georgia O’ Keeffe’s husband. In the 1920s, O’keeffe was a successful artist, she was recognized as one of America’s most important artists. By the summer of 1929, O’ Keeffe traveled to New Mexico and was inspired by the landscape and adobe style art. She decided to make New Mexico her permanent home and continue working on her paintings. Her new paintings sparked an interest in regional scenes by American