Georgia O Keeeffe Thesis

Georgia O’Keeffe
Georgia O’Keefe was a famous woman in the United States of America. She was famous for her work as an artist. Georgia O'Keeffe was born in the late nineteenth century, a time when the women's rights movement was occurring. This was a time when women were fighting for equal suffrage. Suffrage means the right to vote. After a long journey of fighting and educating, the Nineteenth Amendment of The United States Constitution was passed in 1919 and ratified in 1920. The amendment gave the 32 year old Georgia O’Keeffe the ability to vote for the first time. Georgia O’Keeffe was not always 32 years old. She was born on a November day in Wisconsin.

Georgia Totto O’Keeffe was born on November 15, in the year 1887. Out of her family,

she was born the second eldest child, out of seven children. Her parents were Ida and Francis O’Keeffe. Her parents had raised the O’Keeffe household nearby the suburb of Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. Her home in Wisconsin was a wheat farm. O’Keeffe’s family had originated both in Europe, both maternal and paternal side. Georgia Totto O’Keeffe was named after her grandfather on the maternal side, his name was George Totto. Georgia O’Keeffe’s mother, Ida O’Keeffe had always wanted her children, especially the daughters to become well educated. Ida O’Keeffe had personally taken the time to educate her children properly. O’Keeffe was very interested in colors and nature while she was growing up. She aspired to be an artist.Two her grandmothers, and two of her sisters helped develop Georgia O’Keeffe’s knowledge of painting. Ida O’Keeffe had wanted the children learn about art with lessons, so she organized the activity when Georgia O’Keeffe was about twelve. She attended highschool at the Sacred Heart Academy. The Sacred Heart Academy was exclusive and was located in Madison, Wisconsin. Sacred Heart Academy’s environment was very strict. O’Keefe had excelled at her art class and others while she was there. Ida and Francis O’Keeffe were going to relocate their family in Williamsburg, Virginia because of his health, worrying about tuberculosis, a disease that had killed off his siblings. The parents had left Georgia O’Keeffe in Wisconsin while they were looking for a suitable residence. Georgia O’Keeffe had moved in with her Aunt Lola to attend a year at Madison High School, in the year of 1902. Then at the right age of fifteen, Georgia O’Keefe had moved back in with her parents, in Williamsburg, Virginia in 1903. Her art skills were developed and she was growing to be a great artist. At her new school in Williamsburg was called Chatham Episcopal Institute, she stood out from the others. The new school was a boarding school, where the students lived on campus. O’Keeffe was different from the others there as she was not as fashionable and she acted differently. Still, she was well liked because she was indifferent to the normal ways of society. Later on, with her art skills, she had became the art editor of her senior school yearbook. After graduating, Georgia went on with her life. She moved to Chicago to attend university.

Georgia O’Keeffe had attended a year at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1905 to 1906. At the Art Institute of Chicago, she had to study realism. Georgia O’Keeffe did not agree with the art style, but did well anyways. She had also met John Vanderpoel in the year. John Vanderpoel was a teacher that was true to her. O’Keeffe could not return in the fall of 1906 because she had contracted a deadly disease of typhoid fever. Typhoid fever back then was known to take many lives. Georgia O’Keeffe had to take a year off so she could recover. When she took off, she took the time to go back home in Virginia to help out neighborhood children. She then went to attend Art Students League in New York City. While there, she had studied under William Merritt Chase, Kenyon Cox and F. Luis Mora. They had taught her traditional art techniques which led her to paint Dead Rabbit with Copper Pot. It was a still life, and it won a prize, which was a scholarship at the League's summer academy. The academy was at Lake George, in New York. While at Lake George, Georgia O’Keeffe had taken the opportunity to think about her ideas about art. Her ideas were expanded when she visited galleries. One of the galleries that she had visited was 291 and it had shown her many works from Europe and the United States. This gallery was co-owned by her future husband, Alfred Stieglitz. After this adventure, back at home, things were not going as well as the gallery visits.

At home, there was a financial problems within the O’Keeffe family. Her mother, Ida O’Keeffe had tuberculosis. Her father, Francis O’Keeffe was plagued with bad business practices, causing the family to become bankrupt. Georgia O’Keeffe is financially unable to continue at university. O’Keeffe gets a job in Chicago working as a commercial artist. She had drawn lace and embroidery for advertisements until 1910. Georgia O’Keeffe had went back home in Virginia because she had caught the measles. The disease had affected her eyesight, making it hard for her to see. Ida O’Keeffe’s doctor had recommended that she should move to a different place, so her coughing would not be as bad. Georgia and the O’Keeffe’s had moved to Charlottesville, Virginia. While in Charlottesville, Georgia O’Keeffe had listened to advice from her sisters, to take art classes led by Alon Bement. Alon Bement then referred Georgia O’Keeffe to Arthur Wesley Dow, a fellow colleague of Bement’s as they both were faculty members of Teachers College at Columbia University. Using Dow’s ideas, O’Keefe had veered away from realism and leaned towards abstract work. Bement had offered O’Keeffe a position at the Teachers College at Columbia University, allowing O’Keeffe to work beside Dow. Georgia O’Keeffe was not ready yet to continue work at a university, so she went and taught in Texas. She taught at public schools in Amarillo, Texas from 1912 to 1914. She was also Bement’s assistant during summers and learned from Dow by taking a class. Georgia O’Keeffe then went to Columbia University to teach in 1915. Columbia University is located in Columbia, South Carolina. With all this exploration, Georgia O’Keeffe had started to establish the American modernism movement. While she taught, she was re-interested in art. She created highly abstract paintings which were made of charcoal. She then mailed these drawings to a friend in New York, which then led her friend to send them to Alfred Stieglitz. Alfred Stieglitz was well known as an art dealer and photographer.

He then showed some of her work on a display in 1916. Alfred Stieglitz had shown her work on a solo show in 1917, which led more people to look at Georgia O'Keeffe's work. Georgia O’Keeffe had moved to New York because Stieglitz had found a place for her to live. He supported her financially so she could focus on her artwork in New York. They both had ended up falling in love. Alfred Stieglitz already had a wife. The O’Keeffe affair had ended up causing the marriage to become a divorce. The two, O’Keeffe and Stieglitz had then married in 1924. Georgia O’Keeffe was starting to boom in popularity, with the help of her husband.

The married couple made a lot of artwork together. Alfred Stieglitz had taken many photographs of his wife. In the years of 1918 and 1937, they produced about 300 portraits. As an art dealer, Stieglitz had promoted O’Keeffe’s work, and invited her to work with his inner circle of friends. She started to work with more perspective, looking at flowers. The flowers were shown in 1925. O’Keeffe then worked on perspective by looking at New York’s skyscrapers. By the mid 1920’s Georgia O’Keeffe was recognized as one of the United States of America's successful artists. She was most known for her work of the New York Skyscrapers. Georgia O’Keeffe wanted to travel. She traveled to New Mexico to look at traditional Navajo art, the landscape, and unique regional styles.

Georgia O’Keeffe had travel to New Mexico because it gives her inspiration.

She traveled there in 1929. She made many famous works there, such as the Black Cross and New Mexico in 1929. In the 1940’s O’Keeffe’s work was celebrated both at the Museum of Modern Art and the Art Institute of Chicago. Georgia O’Keeffe had spent most of her time in New Mexico, living and working there. In New York, her husband Alfred Stieglitz had an affair with Dorothy Norman. Later, in 1946, at 82 years of age, Alfred Stieglitz had died of a stroke. Three years after his death, O’Keeffe had declared to permanently live in New Mexico. Before she completely settled down, she wanted to travel the

world.

Georgia O’Keeffe had visited many places in the 1950s and the 1960s. She had visited the mountains of Peru, Mount Fuji in Japan, the Colorado River, and the Glen Canyon which is in Utah. She had created art that was inspired by these places which focused on the clouds and rivers. After her travels, she went back home.

At her residence, she continued to paint, even when her eyesight was failing.

Her last unassisted work was done in 1972. She did not want to stop creating though. O’Keeffe had worked from her imagination from there on. She also wrote an autobiography with the help of her assistants. Earlier, O’Keeffe had hired a potter named Juan Hamilton.Back then, he helped Georgia O’Keeffe create pottery. He then went on to become a live-in assistant, then finally a helper. Juan Hamilton had served O’Keeffe for thirteen years. He had inherited her estate after she died. In 1977, she was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Gerald Ford. Later on in 1985, she was given the Nation Medal of Arts. She lived at Ghost Ranch until she died at Santa Fe, New Mexico on March 6, 1986.

Georgia O’Keeffe is known today because of her presence of the modernism movement in art. Her life and legacy is remembered by a dedicated museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico called the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. She had was one of the first women to be accepted as a fine artist because of her strong images and emotional

detail.