GEORGIA O'KEEFFE: BIOGRAPHY AND WORKS - ART - 2024

Georgia O'Keeffe Totto was an artist who went down in history as the pioneer of American modernism. She was a woman who lived intensely for two centuries; She tried not to show fear and obtained achievements that were denied to the women of her generation.

Being a full-fledged artist, Georgia built a visual proposal from a very young age that made a difference. Their presence gave a boost to creative women that spans to the present. Her basic themes were huge flowers and New York skyscrapers.

As usual for artists, passions, feelings and human relationships marked their existence. Recognized with the highest decorations in her homeland, O'Keeffe set the bar for high standards in painting in the United States.

Biography

Georgia O'Keeffe Totto was born on November 15, 1887. She was the second of seven siblings; her parents were a couple of dairy farmers: Francis Calixtus O'Keeffe, Irish; and Ida Totto. She was born in Sun Prairie, state of Wisconsin, in the northern United States.

In that small town, of less than 50 thousand inhabitants, he began his first studies. Georgia and one of her sisters had their first approach to art at the hands of a watercolorist named Sara Mann.

First studies

When he was 15 years old, his family moved to Virginia, as his parents decided to start a concrete block factory. She remained at Madison Central High School.

In 1905 he studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Two years later she entered the Art Students League of New York.

At age 21, she worked as a commercial illustrator because she couldn't afford art studies. However, with a canvas she was awarded the William Merritt Chase Still Life Award. The distinction consisted of a scholarship to the summer school in Lake George, New York.

In that city he visited Gallery 291. There he met its owner, Alfred Stieglitz, who marked the rest of his existence.

Influence of Arthur Wesley Dow

During the years that Georgia worked as a teacher in cities in Virginia, Texas and South Carolina, she took art courses and specialized. One of her teachers and guides was Arthur Wesley Dow. His influence left its mark on her.

This man posed art as an expression alien to a copy of nature. He saw creation as the result of composition: line, mass, and color.

Georgia then advanced in the art of watercolor at the University of Virginia, and in 1915 made a series of abstract charcoal drawings. Her quest was to show her inner being.

She sent her works to her friend Anita Pollitzer, who showed them to Alfred Stieglitz. The photographer and gallery owner was enthusiastic and called it the most sincere work he had seen in a long time.

O'Keeffe traveled to New York and in April 1916 10 of her paintings were exhibited in Gallery 219. That same year she was appointed chair of the Art Department at West Texas State Normal College, Canyon. There she deepened the use of intense colors and worked the sunrises and sunsets with blue and green pigments.

Love relationship with Stieglitz

Stieglitz was 20 years older than her and, out of her personal and professional admiration, gave her his financial support. It also provided her with a residence and a workshop in New York. They were married in 1924.

The artist advanced in her vision both abstract and precious. She worked the detail to the maximum: leaves, flowers and rocks appeared on her canvases. In that year he had already worked 200 paintings with enormous floral details, macro visions.

According to the critics of the time, each work was marked by a marked eroticism; for her, it was the expression of her inner world, of her emotions.

They held a joint exhibition, flowers and photographs, at Anderson Galleries. They then held a retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum. The following year she moved to the 30th floor of the Shelton Hotel and began her pictorial revision of the skyscrapers: an intimate vision marked by the lights of the city.

However, his world of passion was complex. She discovered a mistress for Stieglitz, so Georgia fell ill.

Search for new horizons

Due to disappointment in love, she decided to travel with her friend Rebeca Strand to New Mexico. There she settled in the home of Mabel Dodge Luhan, who supported her for new learning processes.

New Mexico became the best source of inspiration for the artist. Landscapes and architectural spaces became motifs of pictorial inspiration.

In 1943 they mounted a retrospective of his work at the Art Institute of Chicago. Three years later the Museum of Modern Art in New York, MoMA, presented another retrospective. The Whitney Museum of American Art began cataloging all of her work.

By this time Georgia O'Keeffe had earned her place in American art history. Interviews and conversations in different parts of the planet marked the rest of her existence.

In 1973, at 86 years of age, he hired young Juan Hamilton as a helper and caretaker. The boy taught him how to use clay and also helped him write his autobiography.

On March 6, 1986, he died at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, at the age of 98. His ashes were scattered at his Rancho Fantasma residence. His fortune, estimated at $ 76 million, was left to Hamilton.

Plays

Georgia's work was characterized by flowers with high erotic symbolism. Some of the plants painted by the artist have been related to vaginas. Among these works are Blue line, a set of pieces baptized as Series Number 1.

His creation also includes Petunia, No. 2, Black Iris, Pink Tulip and Red Poppy, among others.

Jack-in-a-Pulpit was a series of giant flowers made in 1930. One of his great contributions was to introduce a vision and sensitivity that were alien to art. It was an approach from female passion in a world dominated by men.

The same thing happened with his architectural vision of New York: they were structures and landscapes at the same time. At the time, the male critic turned her back on her; They even said that women did not have the resources to face modernism.

With his work Black Cross with Red Sky (1929) O'Keefee proves otherwise. In this piece he shows a large cross as the fruit of civilization in front of nature. For her, it is the impact of humanity on the virgin earth.

A third major pictorial theme was the landscapes, bones, desert flowers, and corpses of New Mexico; colors and shapes in an orgy of sensuality.

Recognitions

Georgia O'Keefee Totto marked a route to the feminist movement in the field of art in the United States. In 1966 she was appointed a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

In 1971 he was awarded the M. Carey Thomas Award at Bryn Mawr College. In 1973 she received an honorary degree from Harvard University, and in 1977 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

She received the National Medal of Arts in 1993 in the National Women's Hall of Fame. In 1996, the US Postal Service issued a 32-cent stamp to commemorate her.

The following year a museum in his honor was opened in his home in Santa Fe. In addition, numerous books have been written about Georgia and several documentaries have been made on American television.

References

1. Bloch, AH (2003). And… now is the turn for the «gaze» of women: gender analysis and creation in contemporary visual arts. Studies on Contemporary Cultures. Network of Scientific Journals of Latin America and the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal. Recovered at: redalyc.org
2. Rubio Pérez, I. (2001). Women who broke the stereotype: the painters. Autonomous Community of the Region of Murcia. Council of the Presidency. Sectorial Secretariat for Women and Youth. Recovered at: digicarm.carm.es
3. Santiago, JM, Ferreiro, and others. (2014). O'Keeffe, Lempicka, Kahlo, Carrington: passion and madness in four great artists of the 20th century. Galicia Clinic. Recovered at: dialnet.unirioja.es
4. (S / D) Georgia O'keeffe. Recovered in: historia-arte.com
5. Abrams, Dennis (2009). Women of achievement Georgia O'Keeffe. Chelsea House Publishers. Recovered at: books.google.es