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Inside the World of Georgia O’Keeffe: The Mother of American Modernism
- Sutithi
- Sep 2
- 7 min read
Updated: Sep 8
"To create one’s world in any of the arts takes courage." - Georgia O’Keeffe
The dawn of the 20th century saw a sea of changes in the artistic landscape of America, as it was desperately trying to break free from European traditions, to have its own voice in American art and literature, architecture, design, and other creative fields.
With World War I came the disillusionment and disgust for the conventional forms and traditions. Most of the creatives started to look for bold innovation to express their feelings of angst. There were artists like Marsden Hartley, Charles Demuth and Georgia O’Keeffe who started to paint the landscapes of America like never before.
America started embracing individualism and the spirit of experimentation to break away from the traditional forms in any communicative art, be it music, literature, or paintings.
Subjective experience and abstraction became the norm for many artists, just like in the case of Georgia O’Keeffe, one of the most phenomenal artists of the 20th century, renowned for her contribution to modern abstract painting of flowers, urban scenes of New York City, and desert landscapes.
Here, we will revisit the world of Georgia O’Keeffe, learn about her journey, inspiration, immortal works, and what she left behind. How did Georgia succeed in such times when art was considered as a man’s road?
Who Was Georgia O’Keeffe?
When we see the giant yet surreal flowers of red canna or iris, the thing that comes to our minds is none other than Georgia O’Keeffe artworks, a name associated with American abstract expressionism. She was born in 1887 in Wisconsin, America. Her father Francis O’Keeffe was a dairy farmer and she was the second child of the seven children of her parents. From her childhood days in the Sun Prairie farm, she was attracted to nature and the vast landscapes of the Midwest region. These were later reflected in her works.
How was Georgia Associated with American Modernism?
The American urban landscape changed from industrialization and urban growth, with the late decades of the 19th century witnessing skyscrapers and high-rises along with factories billowing smoke. With the growing middle class, art and expression started taking a new turn.
Here, the role of Georgia O’Keeffe was rather significant as she revolutionized American expression with her abstract floral art, paintings of skyscrapers of New York City, and the desert landscapes of Mexico. She uniquely blended realism and modernism with abstraction in its purest form. It was indeed a big step for American art to get a modern visual identity that was quite distinct from its European counterpart.
Georgia used colors, forms, and shapes in her unique way, working on bold perspectives. And so it is obvious why her name is revered as the mother of American Modernism.
What she really did was to take the concept of modernism out of the city space, as associated with big cities like New York and took it into the wide scope of nature and open landscapes.
How did Georgia Abstract the Natural World?
She started to capture the essence of nature through pure abstraction. It felt that her art represented something as great as musical compositions, conveyed through various colors, forms, shapes. They looked beautiful as they represented the things that are beautiful in nature like flowers and valleys.
For over seven decades, she painted over 2000 paintings that represent 20th century’s most important works of art. She was among the brave hearts who was not afraid of pushing the limits, breaking the barriers.
When did her Artistic Journey Begin?
"I decided to start anew, to strip away what I had been taught."
O’Keeffe started with some abstract charcoal drawings that were different from the traditional representations. Her journey as a painter took off in 1915, and she gradually started creating smooth curves, blown-up shapes, merging lines, as something revolutionary for her times, in a male-dominated art world.
O’Keeffe’s First Exhibition Happened by Post!
Yes, O Keeffe’s first works were sent by post to Alfred Stieglitz, an American art promoter and photographer. Their relationship started to take shape during 1916 until they got married in 1924, and settled in New York. Stieglitz promoted O’Keeffe’s charcoal drawings for the first time in 1916 in a New York exhibition.
After she moved to New York in 1918, she started to paint images of skyscrapers, huge buildings as a shift in her subjects.
From 1920 she started experimenting with colors, like her paintings of red canna, ram’s head, iris series. She used dynamic colors and magnanimous compositions changing the natural perspectives, like the scaling up of objects was something she tried for the first time in her work. To some critiques, she showed feminism and individuality in these drawings.
In 1929, she visited New Mexico, and for the next 20 years she would be going back and forth between New York to New Mexico until she settled there in 1949, parts of her works having the rusty south-western feel to them.
Georgia O’Keeffe and the Influence of New Mexico
The summer of 1929 saw a change of direction in O’Keeffe’s portrayals as she was greatly moved by the Northern landscapes of New Mexico, enjoying the stark and barren beauty of the landscapes, and the rich culture of the region. Moving from the urban cityscape of New York City, the rusticity of New Mexico urged her to seek the element of wonder in nature.
Georgia O’Keeffe paintings like Mountain at Bear Lake – Taos in New Mexico started at that time, when she was going back & forth between New Mexico and New York – the painting hinting on that period of transition and travels.
Another painting, the Cliff Chimneys also bear a testament to her conversation with nature; while the painting doesn’t necessarily mean the exact realistic depiction of the rocky surface, but how the rocky terrain evoked the mood in her, where she projected the dirt as color, wilderness portrayed as something artistic.
What were the Subjects of Interest of Georgia O’Keeffe?
Not only flowers, she was greatly inspired by the arid landscapes of Mexico, and from the 1930s animal skulls replaced the work of flowers as her favorite subject.
Her subjects include bleached skeletons, skyscrapers of New York, giant flowers, deserts of New Mexico, urban landscapes, etc.
During 1949 to 1960, while she was living in New Mexico, she used to paint the patio of the adobe walls of her house with nature, pattern, and abstraction — just like the painting of Black Door with Red, where she used some simple squares.
She loved the beauty of the organic forms, as seen in her desert paintings and the floral creations, and thus she would simply reduce the complex objects into simple forms by magnifying them.
Who Inspired Georgia?
Arthur Wesley Dow, the painter and printmaker, inspired O’Keeffe to use simplicity in design and forms. He preferred compositional harmony rather than imitating forms. So, when she started her journey as a painter in 1915, Georgia followed this simplified model to develop a style of her own.
The Color Theory and Georgia O’Keeffe
‘Colors and shapes make a more definite statement than words.’ – Georgia O’Keeffe
White flowers, red canna, black iris, oriental poppies, calla lilies are some of the dramatic floral paintings of O’Keeffe, where she had played on the color symbolism and shapes rather than the complex structures. That’s why her paintings are often called pure abstract paintings. Showing the close-ups she tried to capture the essence of color and shape.
What are the Remarkable Works of Georgia O’Keeffe?
Tate Gallery London and Georgia O’Keeffe MoMA collections showcase some of her remarkable works like Blue Line (1919), an up-close floral image, celebrating the harmony of forms.
Ram’s Head, Blue Morning Glory painted in 1938 was another set of new shifts in her paintings as O’Keeffe grew fascinated with New Mexico.
Above the Clouds, another groundbreaking work on perspectives, giving an aerial view inspired by her frequent journeys. It shows her quest for new perspectives.
Though the critics often associated her works with feminist art, she refused to be seen as one – all she wanted to be called as a single artist, not as a woman artist.
The Legacy of O’Keeffe to Live Forever …
If you want to know more about Georgia O’Keeffe intimately, you have to come to the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, a place dedicated to her legacy and unique creations. It also has a big library, research center, and archive of her monumental works.
It is just fascinating to note how a silent movement like O’Keeffe’s can break the barriers for women artists of her time and for generations to come, as she boldly navigated a male-dominated art world. She was a truly remarkable woman, a creator in so many ways, never afraid to break the norms, for she will live as an icon of hope and courage in our hearts forever.
Georgia wanted to remind us to slow down and look into the depth of nature’s creations, because when we slow down, we can see the nature around us.
The mother of American Modernism became a recluse in her later years and preferred working alone in the solitude of the desert. Georgia O’Keeffe died in 1986, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, leaving behind a legacy to live on, not only in the museums or galleries but in the hearts of her admirers.
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