Georgia O' Keeffe was an American artist who was born in Wisconsin. She was a classic 'started from the bottom' type of individual, her parents were farmers and as such she came from a farmer mentality type of family. At a young age however, she made the decision to became a painter. She took the initiative to learn from a local water colorist to pick up the craft, eventually developing her own style of painting. The subject of many of Keeffe's paintings are flowers and skulls as can be seen below, painted with oil on a canvas, becoming somewhat of a landscape painter.
Ram's Head White Hollyhock and Little Hills
1935
The style in which Keeffe paints is easier to see than it is to describe. The painting above doesnt do it much justice as the scale and size of the painting cannot be displayed as it should. The paintings almost seem imposing when looking at them because of the sheer size of the canvas that Keeffe would use. It can be described as taking a magnifying glass and how the magnifying glass creates a larger image of whatever it is being used for. The detail that can be seen when viewing the image is also something Keeffe would focus on in her paintings. The use of colors, alongside the scale of the paintings grabbed the attention of many New Yorker's, and this in turn helped her gain notoriety, despite the negative notoriety that was created when her husband photographer, Alfred Stieglitz, taking nude photos of her.
Most of the people that looked at Keeffe's work automatically felt that her work was tied to death due to the recurring skulls of dead animals. It is further enforced by the flowers that appear alongside some of the paintings. However Keeffe has tried to get the point across that it had nothing to do with death. Just like other paintings that are based on the environment around her, its just something she found interesting and decided to paint. This is evidenced by the many paintings of the surrounding trees and landscape which surrounded her studio in Taos, New Mexico. The piece below 'Red with Yellow' are quite intriguing as its a rather light red almost peach color, referring to the possible time of day that the painting was finished in and the color it created on the white pelvic bone seen in the painting.
Red with Yellow
1945
Georgia O'Keeffe was able to create many paintings on just what she saw and what interested her, proof that times were changing. Keeffe is unique in that she truly does what she wants, she chose to paint anything that she deemed interesting to her and her alone, disregarding what anybody else thought about it. She even states this: "If I could paint the flower exactly as I see it no one would see what I see because I would paint it small like the flower is small. So 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 time to look at it - I will make even busy New Yorkers take time to see what I see of flowers". Her aim was to get others to see what she see's around her and managed to complete her goal in the end. Her legacy of huge paintings lives on today and shows just how different she was compared to the other artists at the time, the fact that she was also painting for decades is also a testament for her love for painting.
Blue Hollyhock, Black Larkspur
1930
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