Black Hollyhock Blue Larkspur (1930) by Georgia O'KeeffeGeorgia O'Keeffe Museum
You might know Georgia O’Keeffe from her close-up paintings of flowers, but there is much more to the 20th-century artist than just her famous works.
Above the Clouds I (1962-1963) by Georgia O'KeeffeGeorgia O'Keeffe Museum
In her art, she expressed what she called “the wideness and wonder of the world as I live in it.” From the people and places that inspired her, let's learn more about the wideness and wonder of O'Keeffe's legacy.
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1. She was top of her class
From 1905-6, O'Keeffe studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Despite contracting typhoid fever and having to take a year off to recuperate, she still ranked as a top student.
Georgia O'Keeffe (1918) by Alfred StieglitzThe Metropolitan Museum of Art
2. Her relationship did not define her
In 1916, photographer - and later husband - Alfred Stieglitz was shown O'Keeffe's drawings and exhibited them without her permission at his gallery. O'Keeffe was angered, but in 1918 she moved to New York at Stieglitz' request and began working seriously as an artist.
The Black Iris (1926) by Georgia O'KeeffeGeorgia O'Keeffe Museum
3. Sometimes a flower is just a flower
While in New York, O'Keeffe made around 200 large-scale, abstracted paintings of flowers. While they have often been associated with pictures of genitalia, O'Keeffe herself rejected the notion, saying they were 'just flowers'.
Purple Hills Ghost Ranch - 2 / Purple Hills No II (1934) by Georgia O'KeeffeGeorgia O'Keeffe Museum
4. She formed a love for New Mexico
From 1929, following the breakdown of her relationship with Stieglitz and the loss of a major mural commission, O'Keeffe made frequent trips to the deserts and mountains of New Mexico. Here she painted the landscapes throughout the day, from dawn until dusk. However, her works of Padernal Mountain do not capture the whole story of the landscape.
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5. The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum now lives in Santa Fe
Today, the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum holds over 3,000 works comprising of 140 O'Keeffe oil paintings, nearly 700 drawings, and hundreds of additional works dating from 1901 to 1984.
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