Georgia okeeffe art biography

Georgia Totto O'Keeffe November 15, — March 6, was an American modernist painter and draftswoman whose career spanned seven decades and whose work remained largely independent of major art movements.

Georgia o'keeffe education

Called the "Mother of American modernism", O'Keeffe gained international recognition for her paintings of natural forms, particularly flowers and desert-inspired landscapes, which were often drawn from and related to places and environments in which she lived. From , when O'Keeffe began her studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago , until about , she studied art or earned money as a commercial illustrator or a teacher to pay for further education.

Alfred Stieglitz , an art dealer and photographer, held an exhibit of her works in She moved to New York in at Stieglitz's request and began working seriously as an artist. O'Keeffe and Stieglitz lived together in New York until , when O'Keeffe began spending part of the year in the Southwest, which served as inspiration for her paintings of New Mexico landscapes and images of animal skulls, such as Cow's Skull: Red, White, and Blue and Summer Days Her father was of Irish descent.

O'Keeffe was the second of seven children. In late , the O'Keeffes moved from Wisconsin to the close-knit neighborhood of Peacock Hill in Williamsburg, Virginia , where O'Keeffe's father started a business making rusticated cast concrete block in anticipation of a demand for the block in the Virginia Peninsula building trade, but the demand never materialized.

She completed high school as a boarder at Chatham Episcopal Institute in Virginia now Chatham Hall , graduating in At Chatham, she was a member of Kappa Delta sorority. O'Keeffe taught and headed the art department at West Texas State Normal College , watching over her youngest sibling, Claudia, at her mother's request.