Born in Wisconsin in 1887, O’Keeffe attended the School of the Art Institute in Chicago before moving to New York in 1907 to train at the Art Students League. She worked as a commercial artist from 1908 and, in the early 1910s, became exposed to the works of European modernists like Picasso and Braque at the photographer Alfred Stieglitz’s New York gallery, 291.
Stieglitz became interested in O’Keeffe’s own work and exhibited a series of her abstract charcoals, including Special No. 9 (1915) at 291 in 1916, followed by a solo exhibition of her paintings in 1917.
O’Keeffe and Stieglitz married in 1924. By then, the abstraction of her early work had achieved a new and unique synthesis of the photographic techniques pioneered by Stieglitz and his circle, and her own painterly abstraction. With works such as Black Iris (1926) and Ranchos Church (1930), O’Keeffe had forged a new kind of abstracted realism — a forensic, photographic approach that, through close observation and the simplification of form to essentials, unearthed the abstract potential inherent in all nature’s multifarious forms.
After 1929, O’Keeffe began to summer near Taos, New Mexico. From the desert landscape and skies, its animal bones and flora, she created some of her finest works, such as Ram’s Head, Blue Morning Glory (1938) and Black Cross with Stars and Blue (1929).
By the 1940s, she had become widely recognised as one America’s most important painters, with retrospectives at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1943, and in 1946 at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
New Mexico would remain synonymous with her work. After Stieglitz’s death in 1946, she settled permanently outside of Santa Fe, splitting her time between homes in Ghost Ranch and the village of Abiquiu. O’Keeffe died in 1986.
GEORGIA O'KEEFFE (1887-1986)
White Rose with Larkspur No. I
GEORGIA O'KEEFFE (1887-1986)
Black Iris VI
GEORGIA O'KEEFFE (1887-1986)
Autumn Leaf II
GEORGIA O'KEEFFE (1887-1986)
White Calico Rose
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)
Lake George Reflection
GEORGIA O'KEEFFE (1887-1986)
Red Hills with Pedernal, White Clouds
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)
Near Abiquiu, New Mexico
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)
The Red Maple at Lake George
GEORGIA O'KEEFFE (1887-1986)
On the Old Santa Fe Road
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)
From Pink Shell
GEORGIA O'KEEFFE (1887-1986)
Autumn Leaf with White Flower
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)
Hibiscus
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)
Red Hills with Pedernal, White Clouds
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)
Hills and Mesa to the West
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)
Sky with Moon
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)
The Barns, Lake George
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)
Calla Lilies
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)
East River with Sun
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)
Black Door with Snow
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)
My Autumn
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)
New Mexico--Near Taos
GEORGIA O'KEEFFE (1887-1986)
Sand Hill, Alcalde
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)
Blue I
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)
Sun Water Maine
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)
Pink Spotted Lillies
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)
Deer Horns
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)
Two Calla Lilies
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)
My Back Yard
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)
Grapes No. 2
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)
Sand Hill, Alcalde
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)
Black Iris
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)
Canna Red and Orange
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)
Two Calla Lilies Together
GEORGIA O'KEEFFE (1887-1986)
Abstraction
GEORGIA O'KEEFFE (1887-1986)
Lavender & Green Hill—Ghost Ranch
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)
Squash Blossom No. II
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)
Lake George in Woods
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)
Leaves Under Water
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)
Squash Blossom
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)
Horn and Feather
GEORGIA O'KEEFFE (1887-1986)
Abiquiu Trees VII
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)
Apples--No. I
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)
Small Lavender and Grey Green Hill
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)
Ghost Ranch Cliff
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)
Pink Roses and Larkspur
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)
Beauford Delaney
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)
Misty Road
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)
Porcelain Rooster