Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986) was an American modernist who was looking for a new method of representing nature using abstraction. O’Keeffe, born in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, learned to paint at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Students League in New York, before breaking through in the 1910s with her own unique visual language. She was initially professionally known as a member of the inner circle of photographer and dealer Alfred Stieglitz, whom she later married. O’Keeffe’s initial watercolors and charcoal work communicated her interest in non-representational expression and organic form, setting her apart from more traditional painters of her time.
During her seven-decade long career, O’Keeffe developed a powerful body of work that includes large flowers, abstract landscapes, and desert skeletal forms that she sourced from the American Southwest. Her paintings compel the audience to see the natural world again, emphasizing form, color, and emotional meaning over strict representation. She was one of the first women painters in the United States to become well known and a lightning rod for independence and creativity. O’Keeffe’s contribution today is that of one of the greatest painters of 20th-century American art, universally respected for her ability to wed nature and abstraction in a highly idiosyncratic and visionary way.
Sources:
- Yvonne Scott, Achille Bonito Oliva, and Richard D. Marshall, Georgia O’Keeffe: Nature and Abstraction (Skira, 2007).
This exhibition catalog offers comprehensive essays analyzing O’Keeffe’s method of transforming recognizable objects into abstract forms that express essential elements of form, color, and allusion. It provides valuable insights into her artistic process and thematic focus.
2. Ariel Plotek, “Georgia O’Keeffe’s Radical Abstraction,” Georgia O’Keeffe Museum (2022).
Curator Ariel Plotek examines O’Keeffe’s long-standing relationship with abstraction, discussing how her early explorations influenced her entire body of work. The talk highlights the exhibition Radical Abstraction, emphasizing her techniques of framing, magnification, and simplification.
3. Sharyn R. Udall, “Georgia O’Keeffe and Emily Carr: Health, Nature and the Creative Process,” Woman’s Art Journal, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Spring – Summer, 2005), pp. 3-9.
This peer-reviewed article compares the works of O’Keeffe and Canadian artist Emily Carr, focusing on how their health and connection to nature influenced their creative processes. It offers a nuanced perspective on O’Keeffe’s engagement with natural forms.
