Her Early Days

Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986) was born near Sun Prairie Wisconsin, US. She was one of her parents’ six siblings and she grew up on a Wisconsin dairy farm. She received art lessons at home and, recognizing her ability to draw and paint, her teachers cultivated her talent to draw and paint. Georia began her art training in 1905 at the School of the Art Institute of Chicogo and then the Art Students Leage of New York. She worked for two years as a commercial illustrator and then taught in Virginia, Texas and South Carolina between 1911 and 1918.

Her Marriage

Alfred Stieglitz, an art dealer, held an exhibition of her works in 1917. She moved to New York at Stieglitz’s request and began working seriously as an artist. Alfred Stieglitz’s personal relationship with the art dealer let to their marriage in 1924. Thereafter, she began spending her time in the Southwest and this fuelled her instinct to paint New Mexico landscapes and images of skulls. The result was her paintings such as ‘Cow’s Skull: Red, White, and Blue’ and ‘Ram’s Head While Hollyboc and Little Hills’.

Her Lucrative Floral Painting

Georgia O’Keeffe was an American modernist painter. She is famous for her large-format paintings, particularly, of enlarged flowers and bones, New York Skyscrapers and landscapes around New Mexico. She was called the ‘Mother of American Modernism‘. One of Georgia’s floral paintings sold for $US 44.4 million at an auction. This sale value set a record for a painting by a female artist.

‘Cow’s Skull: Red, White, and Blue’

Georgia O’Keeffe spent a lot of time in New Mexico and Lake George and New York. This changed her interest in the choice of her subjects for painting. Instead of New York buildings, Georgia turned her focus to nature and skulls became the centre of her focus. Experts feel that the jagged edges and worn-out surface of the skull represent the beauty of the American Desert and the strength of the American spirit. The red, white and blue background gives it a sense of patriotism. When she left high school, she had decided to become a professional artist.

‘Jimson Weed’

Georgia O’Keeffe painted ‘Jimson Weed, an oil on linen paintingin 1936. She was immensely fond of jimson weed, a species of flower, so much that she ignored the toxicity of its seeds and allowed it to flourish in her patio. The painting is a depiction of four large blossoms of a jimson weed, pin-wheel shaped flower. Georgia O’Keeffe originally titled the painting ‘Miracle Flower, JIson Weed’. Elizabeth Arden, a cosmetics magnate commissioned her to paint this peie of art. The patron wanted the painting displaying it in the excise room of her Fifth Avenue Salon to encourage her clients. Arden paid $10000 for the largest floral composition of O’Keeffe.

The Final Years of Life

After Stieglitz’s death, she lived in New Mexico at Georgia O’Keeffe Home and Studio in Abiquie util the last year of her life. Her 1932 painting ‘Jimson Weed/White Flower No.1’ sold for US$44 million. After her death, the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum was established.