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nIfnyou have ever seen a really large, really close-up painting of anflower, you may have seen a piece of artwork by Georgia O’Keeffe.nBorn on this day in 1887, in Wisconsin, O’Keeffe came to New YorknCity’s art scene at a time when women still had no access to trainingnat universities, and there were no well-known women artists.
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Butnin less than a decade, O’Keeffe had managed to make herself one ofnAmerica’s most important modern artists—of either sex!
Butnin less than a decade, O’Keeffe had managed to make herself one ofnAmerica’s most important modern artists—of either sex!n
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nBecausenshe made such compelling artwork, and because she was a trailblazernfor women artists, Georgia O’Keeffe became an important culturalnicon.
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nAlthoughnO’Keeffe was born in Wisconsin, studied art at an art school innChicago, worked as an art teacher in South Carolina and Texas, andngained fame in New York City, many of us associate O’Keeffe with NewnMexico. She traveled to New Mexico every summer for years andneventually made it her permanent home. She often explored deserts andnmountains and canyons, hiking or driving her Model A Ford. Shenpurchased a place called Ghost Ranch, where she painted the nearbyncliffs and cattle and other skulls she’d found. n
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nO’Keeffenmarried a famous photographer, Alfred Stieglitz, whose gallerynshowing of O’Keeffe helped put her on the map. She lived to be 98nyears old! n
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nUpnClose, and Closer
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nGeorgianO’Keeffe is particularly famous for her large-scale, up-closenportraits of flowers. Flower parts that aren’t even three inches longnhave been expanded to fill a three-foot-long canvas! By magnifyingnflower shapes so much that we are zoomed in to flower centers, thenfamiliar flower forms become unfamiliar abstract shapes. n
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nO’Keeffensaid, “Indecided that if I could paint that flower in a huge scale, you couldnnot ignore its beauty.”
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nChecknout the online images available at the O’Keeffe Museum. Then use themnas inspiration as you paint your own up-close flower picture.
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nThenimages on art-dot-com are zoomable in several ways.n First, click on an image to see a larger version of it. You can movenyour mouse around the picture to see a closer-up image, or you cannclick “Zoom” to see the largest-scale image. n
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nHerenand here are some art lessons about Georgia O’Keeffe-styled pictures.
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nTonfind out more about Georgia O’Keeffe, maybe you can find Georgia’s Bones, or one of these other books, at a local library ornbookstore.
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