preview

Essay On O Keeefe

Decent Essays

Georgia O’Keefe was born on a small family farm near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin on November 15, 1887 as the second child of seven. Daughter of Francis Calyxtus O'Keeffe, Sr. and Ida Ten Totto; Sister of Francis Calyxtus O'Keeffe, Ida Ten Eyck O'Keeffe, Anita Ten Eyck Young, Alexis "Tex" Wyckoff O'Keeffe, Catherine Blanche O'Keeffe; and Claudia Ruth O'Keeffe. At a young age, she was encouraged to take art lessons from Sara Mann, a local artist, who taught her how to use watercolours. She married her mentor, Alfred Stieglitz in 1924. They lived in New York, though O’Keefe frequently visited New Mexico to paint the landscape. She took up permanent residence in Taos, New Mexico after her husband’s death in 1924. When she got older, she had a rapid …show more content…

She found that she enjoyed painting natural and abstract ideas with charcoal, clay, and watercolour paints. While she was in school, she found that the art she created was far too unfulfilling and stopped making art for a few years. Once she started painting again, she became a commercial artist in Chicago until she moved to Texas to teach art classes. She continued to create art, experimenting with mixing natural and abstract ideas together, until an old classmate from college showed her art to a friend in New York, Alfred Stieglitz, whom owned an art gallery called “291”. He displayed her art in his gallery in 1916 without her knowledge. He offered to fund her to remain studying art if she continued to paint. She suffered from Macular Degeneration and lost her eyesight, painting her last unassisted oil painting in 1972. She wrote her own illustrated autobiography in 1976, that became a bestseller and received the Medal of Freedom from President Gerald Ford the following year. She completely lost her sight in 1977 and continued to make art despite this disability through her assistants. Even after she died, her art still grew in popularity, and was considered the foremother of feminist

Get Access