Georgia O Keeffe 1887-1986 American Modernism In the vertical art storage rack you will find the following reproductions and posters: Reproductions: Red Poppy No. VI From the Lake No. 1 Yellow Cactus 8.5x11 color prints of Ram's Head, White Hollyhock, Little Hills and several other artworks from OKeeffe. Poster: The Art Elements & Principles posters to use in the discussion In the black cabinet you will find a white binder with a copy of this presentation In the plastic bin you will find the book Getting to Know the World s Greatest Artists, Georgia O Keeffe, written and illustrated by Mike Venezia. Updated February 28, 2014
Georgia O Keefe 2 Personal Information Name: Nationality: Born: Died: Lived: Family: Georgia O Keeffe American November 15, 1887, on a dairy farm in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin March 6, 1986, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She was 98 years old. Her ashes were scattered into the landscape near her house at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico O Keeffe grew up living in a farmhouse in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. When she was 15 years old, the O'Keeffes moved from Wisconsin to Williamsburg, Virginia. Georgia O Keeffe studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, and later at the Art Students League of New York City. Her work was shown in New York City galleries and was widely exhibited in other important institutions. Georgia O Keeffe taught art in Texas from 1913-1918. in 1924, O Keeffe married her husband, photographer Alfred Stieglitz, and she settled in New York City. Between 1929 and 1949, O'Keeffe spent part of nearly every year working in New Mexico. In 1949, three years after her husband s death, O Keeffe permanently moved to New Mexico Georgia O Keeffe s parents, Francis Calyxtus O'Keeffe and Ida (Totto) O'Keeffe, were dairy farmers. Her father was of Irish descent. Her mother's father, George Victor Totto, for whom Georgia O'Keeffe was named, was a Hungarian count who came to America in 1848. Georgia was the second of seven O'Keeffe children, and the first daughter. O Keeffe met her husband photographer, Alfred Stieglitz in 1908 in New York City. They did not have children. They were married in 1924 until his death in 1946. Elements of Art Note to Presenters: When looking at Georgia O Keeffe s work, keep in mind the Elements of Art: the line, shape, color, form, and texture. This laminated print is available to bring into the classroom, it shows and describes all the things that go into making a work of art and can be shown to the children so that they may keep these things in mind as they look at the paintings.
Georgia O Keefe 3 Artist Background The National Women s Hall of Fame describes Georgia O Keeffe as:...an American original, living as she chose, painting what she wanted. It is said that her art is uniquely American, shining with a bright modernism and energy. The lyrical flowers, the New Mexico-inspired vistas of light and shape, the hardedged, energetic urban landscapes all somehow could only have been painted by an American woman. 1 Georgia O Keeffe was born on November 15, 1887 in Sun Prairie Wisconsin. She was one of seven children and the second oldest. When she was young, her parents enrolled her in art classes. Georgia O Keeffe was talented in art, and by the time she was 13 she knew she wanted to be an artist. At the age of eighteen O'Keeffe attended The Art Institute of Chicago and then later at the Art Students League in New York. Georgia, however, did not like the fact that most of her art teachers and classes were teaching painting that was very realistic and she did not feel she was able to use her imagination the way she wanted to. Georgia wanted to paint things that were important to her and to use beautiful color. She subsequently left New York and went to study in Virginia. At the University of Virginia she finally had a teacher that felt a painter s most important duty was to fill space in a beautiful way. O'Keeffe agreed with this thinking. After she completed her studies at the University of Virginia she moved to Texas to teach art. Georgia found beautiful landscapes in Texas and it became a very important part of her paintings. After teaching art in Texas, she moved back to New York in 1916. While in New York City, she met a well-known photographer named Alfred Stieglitz. Alfred loved Georgia s paintings and Georgia let him display them in his gallery. It was from those exhibits that her paintings became well known. Stieglitz exhibited ten of Georgia s drawings in a group show at his gallery, 291, which helped her gain recognition in the abstract expressionist movement. Georgia intended her abstract work to be the very personal expression of the intangible, her feelings and esthetic about the natural world. Though even as Georgia moved toward representational depictions of desert flowers and Southwestern scenery for which she is best known, abstraction was her guiding principle. 1 http://www.greatwomen.org/women- of- the- hall/search- the- hall/details/2/115- O'Keeffe
Georgia O Keefe 4 Featured Artwork (Presenter may select from any or all of the featured works) Red Poppy No. VI (1928) Georgia O Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz became very good friends and in 1924 they were married. Georgia O'Keeffe and her husband lived in an apartment in New York City, where she was inspired to paint the lovely views from her home. One of her favorite subjects was flowers. She said that most people in the city rush around so, that they have no time to look at a flower and she painted them large enough so they would see her flowers whether they wanted to or not. Many times she would paint them very close up and only show part of the flower itself. She gave this new perspective because she wanted people to look at the beauty of the flower in a new light. It was during this time that Georgia O'Keeffe painted Red Poppy with oil on canvas. Arthur Wesley Dow, an early teacher of O Keeffe s, believed in the idea of Filling space in a beautiful way. O Keeffe does this in painting the poppy to fill the canvas with the edges of the flower going right off the paper. O Keeffe wanted people to take the time to see what she sees of a flower. O Keeffe has stated: I said to myself, I ll paint what I see what the flower is to me but I ll paint it big and they will be surprised into taking the time to look at it. I will make even busy New Yorkers take time to see what I see of flower." You may discuss the following points. Ask the children if they recognize the flower. How does this painting make you feel? What do you think Georgia O Keeffe is saying about this flower by making you see it so close up? Perhaps she is saying that there is a lot to be seen, a lot of beauty, in small things if you just slow down and take the time. What other colors do you see in the painting? Does the background give you any clues about where the flower is? Notice that O Keeffe used light and dark values of a single color, in this case, red, to show the petals of the flower. Discuss how she used color tints and shades. Tint is to lighten a color by mixing in white. Shade is to darken a color by mixing in black. Notice that you do not see a stem or any leaves. Where in relationship to the flower has the artist put you the viewer? This is called the artists' point of view. It tells us how the artist sees the particular subject they are representing.
Georgia O Keefe 5 From the Lake No. 1 (1924) The natural surroundings of Georgia O Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz home on Lake George in the Adirondack Mountains in New York are the subject of From the Lake No. 1, and the painting is filled with organic forms that evoke this environment. While the title of this work suggests that it is representational (meaning that it depicts a recognizable scene), the forms of the painting are abstract distorted, altered, or exaggerated in some way. Instead of articulating each detail of the landscape, O Keeffe has focused on the elements that were most important to her. In From the Lake No. 1 the artist has painted clouds and swirling forms below them that may represent other elements of the landscape, such as the lake, but the forms are generalized enough that they defy precise identification. For example, is the light blue area on the bottom right of the painting part of the sky or part of the lake? Are the curvilinear forms at the bottom of the painting mountains or merely abstractions that do not represent anything in particular? O Keeffe s forms, as well as her color palette purple, yellow, pale blue, and white are evocative, expressive, and mysterious, allowing room for different interpretations. The following may be brought up with the class for discussion: Does anyone have a guess what this picture may be? (Do not tell the class the name of the painting until after they have a chance to guess a few times). Point out that the picture is ABSTRACT because it doesn t look like anything real. You can ask the children what they see in this painting? What emotions does this painting convey? This abstract painting shows a MOOD or a feeling. What you see here is the way that Georgia O Keeffe felt about Lake George in the Adirondacks in upstate New York. There are many LINES in this picture. Notice how some lines are very light and some are very dark. Can you see any LINES that remind you of MOVEMENT? The curving lines and shapes in the center appear to be moving up towards the left side of the picture like stormy waves. Ram's Head White Hollyhock and Little Hills (1935) O Keeffe loved the American West and she painted real things in her life. The skull and antlers, the flowers, the desert hills...all reflect the reality of O'Keeffe's life in New Mexico. She began visiting the
Georgia O Keefe 6 American southwest in 1929 and fell in love with it. Between 1929 and 1949, O'Keeffe traveled to New Mexico almost annually. Eventually she moved to New Mexico and lived there until her death in 1986. But even before moving there, on her visits she began collecting the bleached white animal skulls scattered over the desert. She used the skulls in a number of her paintings. O Keeffe s Ram's Head White Hollyhock and Little Hills is a landscape painting done with oil on canvas. It shows a proportionately over-sized ram's skull and white flower in the sky above some hills. The skull appears to be floating in the sky. The long snout of the deer is pointing downward, as if you are looking down at the top of the skull. The ram s head is the skeleton is very simple with only a few colors used to draw it. There is a while hollyhock in this picture next to it. The hills are brown and extend across the entire bottom of the painting from one edge to the other. The sky just above the hills shows patches of blue and white for clouds that look as if a storm is near. Some questions you may bring up for discussion include the following. Does this painting make you think of anything? Perhaps a desert of America? Do you find anything interesting about this painting? Georgia O Keeffe found inspiration from nature: flowers, driftwood, and animal skulls in the desert. She continued to return to New Mexico s desert every year to vacation and paint. Have you ever thought of drawing something in nature that you thought was beautiful and thought of painting or photographing it? What was it? Yellow Cactus (1940) What do you see in the painting? What is missing? What kind of flower is it? How big do you think this flower is in real life? Does this flower look delicate or strong? (O'Keeffe often made her paintings simple but strong. The size of the flower makes it seem more powerful.) Does this painting looked balanced to you? Is the picture symmetrical or asymmetrical?
Georgia O Keefe 7 What is the artist s vantage point? The vantage point is where you think the artist seems to have been standing when the art was created. In this picture, O Keeffe took a bee s eye view in order to study the detail. Why do you think the artist used dark colors towards the center of each flower? (This technique is called shading). Artists use darker colors when they are trying to create a threedimensional appearance on the object. This technique gives the object depth and helps it to be more real.as you would see it. No Signature, Georgia O'Keeffe chose not to sign her paintings. She felt that the painting itself was a personal signature. Conclusion Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, O Keeffe s fame continued to grow. She traveled around the world and had a number of major retrospectives in the U.S. The most important came in 1970 at the Whitney Museum of American Art, placing her categorically as one of the most important and influential American painters. In 1976 her illustrated autobiography, Georgia O Keeffe was a bestseller, and the next year she received the Medal of Freedom from President Gerald Ford. In 1985 she received the Medal of the Arts from President Ronald Reagan. In March of the next year, at the age of 98, O Keeffe passed away in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Georgia O Keeffe s work remains a prominent part of major national and international museums. Georgia O`Keeffe was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. She received 10 honorary doctorates. Several plays and many books have been written about her life and work. Permanent collections of O'Keeffe's work include those at the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Boston Museum of Fine Arts; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Georgia O Keeffe became very famous for her larger than life paintings. The way she lived was also larger than life. At a time when women s lives were limited she made sure her life was free and limitless as the vast, open landscape where she was born. Resources Bibliography: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/georgia-okeeffe/about-the-painter/55/ http://whitney.org/file_columns/0003/4372/georgia_o_keeffe_teacher_guide.pdf http://www.okeeffemuseum.org/ http://www.all-art.org/art_20th_century/okeeffe1.html http://www.greatwomen.org/women-of-the-hall/search-the-hall/details/2/115-o'keeffe