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Georgia O'Keeffe |
Georgia O'Keeffe,
born in 1887, died at the age of 99 in 1986. The most Famous American abstract
painter, widely known for the seeming simplicity and fluidity of her large
compositions. Born in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, she studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and at the Art Students League in New York.
In 1916, she met the American photographer and gallery director Alfred Stieglitz. Stieglitz became interested in her abstract drawings and exhibited them at his well-known gallery "291," in New York City. From then on O'Keeffe's paintings were shown annually in Stieglitz's various galleries. Afterwards, her work became widely exhibited in other important institutions. Georgia O'Keeffe moved to New Mexico in 1949. She is best known for her large paintings of flowers, in which a single blossom or an object such as a cow's skull is stylized and made into a personal vision of the artist's esthetic, depicting her subject in extreme close-up. O'Keeffe's subject matter is predominantly representational, making use of elements adapted from Cubism such as hard linear contours and bold patterns combined with thin, pastel-like coloring to compose subjective and symbolic abstract designs. In a number of her works, the large flower paintings in particular—such as Black Iris painted 1926, and which is included in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City—the anatomy of the flower is so enlarged that it becomes unfamiliar and surprisingly feminine. O'Keeffe had a young and handsome companion in her later years. The two were very close and he was with her until the day she died. Georgia O'Keeffe is one of my favorite artists. She has a beautiful museum devoted to her work in Santa Fe, New Mexico that is well worth a visit. I think she would have been an excellent long distance runner, since she possessed a set of very long and powerful legs. She also had broad shoulders and very muscular and vascular arms which she could have used when mountain climbing. She was obviously very much in control of her own life, calling all the shots and making her own destiny. Being so creative, if she were a wrestler, I'm sure she would have invented many of her own holds to gain the advantage over and pin her opponents! |
