Pink and Blue

Georgia O’Keeffe

(November 15, 1887-March 6, 1986)

Georgia O'Keeffe was born in a farmhouse on a large dairy farm outside of Sun Prairie, Wisconsin on November 15, 1887. By age 16 Georgia had 5 years of private art lessons at various schools in Wisconsin and Virginia. After receiving her diploma in 1905 she left for Chicago to live with an aunt and attend the Art Institute of Chicago. She did not return to the Institute the following year after a Typhoid Fever illness. She enrolled at the Art Student League in New York City. Georgia accepted a teaching position and painted in her free time. Georgia O’Keeffe portrayed the power and emotion of objects of nature. This was first seen in her charcoal drawings of silhouetted bud-like forms exhibited in 1916 that brought her fame. During the 1920s, she explored this theme in her magnified paintings of flowers. After spending a summer in New Mexico, Georgia O'Keeffe, painted the barren landscape and expansive skies of the desert and explored the subject of animal bones in her paintings. Georgia O'Keeffe was married to the pioneer photographer Alfred Stieglitz in 1924. It was at Stieglitz's famed New York art gallery that her charcoal drawings were first exhibited in 1916. They were married for 22 years, until Stieglitz's death. She lived in New Mexico and continued to paint until she died March 6, 1986 at the age of 98.

McGaugh Interpretation