Georgia Okeefe

Georgia O'Keeffe, No. 13 Special, 1916/1917, Charcoal on paper

Alfred StieglitzAlfred Stieglitz photograph of O'Keeffe. New York City, 1918

Blue-Green Music, Georgia O'Keeffe, 1921

Georgia O'Keeffe, Ram's Head White Hollyhock and Little Hills, 1935, The Brooklyn MuseumBrooklyn Museum

"My first memory is of the brightness of light...light all around. I was sitting among pillows on a quilt on the ground...very large white pillows..."

When Georgia was in the eighth grade she asked a daughter of a farm employee what she was going to do when she grew up. The girl said she didn't know. Georgia replied very definitely... "...I am going to be an artist!"--"I don't really know where I got my artist idea...I only know that by that time it was definitely settled in my mind."

One particular teacher, Elizabeth Willis encouraged her to work at her own pace and afforded her opportunities that the other students felt unfair. At times she would work intensely, and at other times she would not work for days. When it was brought to the attention of the principal, she would reply..."When the spirit moves Georgia, she can do more in a day than you can do in a week"

"I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me...shapes and ideas so near to me...so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn't occurred to me to put them down..."

Old Maple, Lake George 1926

1923

1929

White Trumpet Flower, 1932

"One can't paint New York as it is, but rather as it is felt."

"Well! Well! Well!...This is wonderful. No one told me it was like this!"

"...There was a long weathered carpenter's bench under the tall tree in front of the little old house that Lawrence had lived in there. I often lay on that bench looking up into the tree...past the trunk and up into the branches. It was particularly fine at night with the stars above the tree."

"...I often painted fragments of things because it seemed to make my statement as well as or better than the whole could...I had to create an equivalent for what I felt about what I was looking at...not copy it."

"Anyone who doesn't feel the crosses simply doesn't get that country." Bell/Cross, Ranchos Church, 1930

"The bones seem to cut sharply to the center of something that is keenly alive on the desert even tho' it is vast and empty and untouchable...and knows no kindness with all it's beauty." Ram's Head with Hollyhock 1930

Cow's Skull - Red, White and Blue 1930

"All the earth colors of the painter's palette are out there in the many miles of badlands..." "It's my private mountain, It belongs to me. God told me if I painted it enough, I could have it."

View from My Studio, 1930

"When you get so that you can't see, you come to it gradually. And if you didn't come by it gradually, I guess you'd just kill yourself when you couldn't see."

Juan Hamilton "He came just the moment I needed him."

"When I think of death, I only regret that I will not be able to see this beautiful country anymore...unless the Indians are right and my spirit will walk here after I'm gone."