Intro to Georgia O'Keeffe

Georgia O’Keeffe1887-1986

- An American artist born in Wisconsin

- Loved to go outside and observe nature starting from when she was a young girl

- At 10 years of age, she started taking art lessons and at 13 she decided she wanted to be an artist.

- She eventually went to college for art, which was unusual for a female during that time. She went to college in Chicago and New York City.

- Taught art in elementary schools and universities until a famous photographer, Alfred Steiglitz began showing her work. Making art became her full time focus.

Georgia O’keeffe’s flower paintings were often painted from a bird’s eye view and were magnified.

What is a bird’s eye view?

Bird’s Eye View- Seeing from a point of view from an altitude or from a distance; a comprehensive view in a downward direction; also called an aerial view.

Remarkably, she remained independent from shifting art trends and stayed true to her own vision, which was based on finding the essential, abstract forms in nature.

What does it mean to be ABSTRACT?

Her primary subjects were landscapes, flowers, and bones.

The images were drawn from her life experiences and related to places where she lived.

“A hill or tree cannot make a good painting just because it is a hill or tree. It is lines and colors put together so that they may say something."Georgia O'Keeffe.

Abstract Art: the artist uses a visual language of shapes, forms, lines and colors to interpret a subject-matter, without necessarily providing the viewer with a recognizable visual reference point. 

The abstract artist communicates with us in a way that allows us to find our  own personal response to the work. 

“Nobody sees a flower – really – it is so small it takes time – we haven’t time – and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.”

“If you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for a moment.”

In her magnified close-ups of flowers O'Keeffe brings the viewer right into the picture.

Enlarging the tiniest petals to fill an entire 30 x 40 inch canvas emphasized their shapes and lines and made them appear abstract, when in fact they were based on her observations of nature.

In New Mexico, O'Keeffe found new subjects to paint in the sun-bleached animal bones and the rugged mountains that dominate the terrain.

The last two decades of the artist's life were relatively unproductive as ill health and blindness hindered her ability to work.

When she died in 1986 at age ninety-eight, her ashes were scattered over the New Mexico landscape she had loved for more than half a century.

Her rich legacy of some 900 paintings has continued to attract generations of artists and art lovers who take inspiration from these very American images.

Georgia O’Keeffe talking about her work

contour line drawing- flower

For this unit…- You will be completing outdoor drawings and taking photographs of plants and flowers to use as your subject

- You will create a large format pastel drawing of a flower and/or plants using a magnified bird’s eye view, create a variety of values and tones with layering and blending, create an abstract image that extends off the page.

- Draw a charcoal still-life using animal bones as the main subject