_Georgia O'Keeffe _
By: Dana Saylor
Georgia OKeeffe was an artist of world renown but a person of mysterious
character. She lived a unique life which was not accepted as moral by most
people. She surrounded herself with artistic, creative minds and carefully
selected her friends and confidants. Events in her youth influenced her
actions and artwork for almost 100 years. OKeeffe moved about the country, a
lover of travel who never was satiated. She came from an eccentric family with
mixed ethnic heritage, and the women around her were strong and self-
confident. Her life was an epic tale, worthy of retellingOn November 15,
1887, Georgia was second born of seven children to Ida and Francis OKeeffe.
Living in rural Wisconsin, her father came from a typical Irish Catholic
matriarchy, where mothers word was final. Ida OKeeffe was an ambitious woman
whose dream of becoming a doctor was laid to rest...by her marriage to the
tenant farmer Frank...in a loveless union (Hogrefe 13). Perhaps it was the
stifling of her ambition that led Ida to treat Georgia so badly. As a young
girl, the artist was described as precocious, mentally mature, and queen of
the castle , whether it be in relation to her siblings or fellow students in
the studio. Either way, her mother was generally a cold person who offered
little affection to her oldest daughter, even going so far as to lock her in
the back room, alone, when company came. Thus, Georgia turned to a close
relationship with her father. The family knew that Georgia was Franks
favorite, and he took her on excursions and gave her special privileges All
this came with consequences, though. It is a widely accepted fact that she was
sexually abused by her father, older brother, or both, which accounts for many
of OKeeffes unorthodox behaviors throughout her life. For example, in
boarding school she was known to kiss and touch her female classmates
frequently. When enrolled in classes at the Art Students League in New York
City, she ran, terrified, out of a figure drawing class where stood a male
nude model. In all her years, Georgia surrounded herself with ineffectual
males who were frequently homosexual. Perhaps she liked them because they
posed no threat to her. On the other hand, she adored her female counterparts,
having friendships with some and sexual relationships with others. She was
even known to sit in a shed at the Stieglitz summer home in Lake George, NY,
and paint naked for hours. Sometimes her young niece would make art at her
side, and it is uncertain whether there were romantic relations between them.
It was clear that Georgias unusual upbringing led to an unusual lifestyle, in
any case Ida seemed to want a somewhat normal life for her children, and
insisted they be brought up Protestant, but the only private school in the
area was Catholic. The OKeeffes could only afford to send one child at a
time, and rotated public and private education yearly. Georgia had many
memories of being taught by strict and severe nuns. She received art
instruction beginning in her youth and thus began a legacy of creative genius.
OKeeffes first interaction with the masters like Michaelangelo, Da Vinci,
and others was by copying famous works. This practice was widely used and
encouraged in art schools all over the world. Then she met a teacher who
instructed her in the Dow Method. Instead of copying the works of others,
[it] advocated that students produce original artwork from the beginning of
their instruction.(Hogrefe 25). Alon Bement taught Georgia most of the
concepts she would ever use or apply in her artwork. This was the summer of
1912 at the University of Virginia After this, Georgia took up a teaching
position in Amarillo, Texas, an area she found to be paradisiacal. She was an
excellent teacher, well- liked, and always kept her students interested. The
Texan landscape was like nothing she had ever seen before, with skies and
plains stretching out further than the mind could fathom. The places she saw
in the West inspired her, and she could never escape it for very long without
feeling a strong sense of longing. It was from there that she drew most of the
objects, images and memories which she put in her paintings. She lived out
west for a significant portion of her life because things were simpler and
most people did not ask too many questions One of OKeeffes friends from
art school in New York City, Anna Pollitzer, became a link to a great change
for Georgia. Pollitzer knew Alfred Stieglitz, a world- renowned photographer
and proprietor of 291, a gallery in the city. In January of 1916, she received
some drawings from OKeeffe, who was out west. They so amazed Pollitzer that
she broke a promise and brought them to show to Stieglitz. He saw them as a
revelation, and wanted to display them as soon as possible. OKeeffe found out
about the show upon her return to New York City, and was enraged. She seemed
to have a problem with sharing her artwork with the general public, or anyone
at all. Perhaps it was because she put so much of herself into her drawings
and paintings; her sexuality, her confidence, fears, experiences, and hopes.
Like it or not, she was propelled into the modern art world amongst other
famous artists of her time: Marsden Hartley, Arthur Dove, John Marin and
others. These people were intellectuals, sometimes anarchists, feminists,
homosexuals, but always considering the latest topics of human discourse
(Hogrefe 61). It was in this context that OKeeffe and Stieglitz got to know
each other Alfred Stieglitz was a much older man; many years Georgias
senior. The artist had said that the man fell in love with her drawings long
before he met her. Stieglitz was an unhappily married man, and his snobbish
wife gave him an allowance from her share of her familys brewery profits.
With this, Stieglitz took budding artists and friends out to lunch, to help
them out or gain connections for displays in 291. At first, the relationship
between him and OKeeffe was innocent; a patron and artist, a student and
teacher, or perhaps even a father and daughter. Stieglitzs obviously
paternalistic role could have been a substitute for the role Georgias father
played early in her life. Alfred took care of her by selling her works for the
equivalent of a years living expenses, or other practical needs. OKeeffe
began to model for Stieglitzs camera, and an enormous portfolio of
breathtaking nude photography emerged after many years of accumulation. Of
course, Alfreds wife Emmy did not find it particularly breathtaking to come
across the pair in the middle of a sitting. Georgia had not been the first
woman the older man had had an affair with, and this time his marriage was
over for good Stieglitz and OKeeffe cohabited cramped New York City studio
apartments, most often occupying separate beds. They had a strange
relationship which consisted of similar intellects, much stubborn and violent
argument, and an artistic partnership where each fed off the others
creativity. Many biographers suggest that they were simply together because it
was convenient and mutually beneficial, and they had few emotional ties. After
all, why would a woman who had such lesbian tendencies suddenly attach herself
to a man of such strong personality who seemed to dominate her? Stieglitz was
a demanding hypochondriac who always needed care, right up to his dying day.
Theirs was an unusual union, and after he passed on, Georgia continued her
life in earnest This is far from the entire volume of Georgia OKeeffes
lifetime. It was a long, frequently lonely life, even when she was surrounded
by people. She chose to isolate herself from a growing, modernizing country
where every mark she put on paper supposedly represented the whole of the
female gender. She sought to escape the criticism and pressure of the city,
and to create artwork freely, with no limits or boundaries. OKeeffe never
aligned herself with any particular movement, such as the cubists,
surrealists, or expressionists. She simply painted what she saw, and the
beauty of her reality existed in its perfect state in her own mind
_Bibliography _
Cited Hogrefe, Jeffrey. OKeeffe: The LIfe of an American Legend. New
York:Bantam Books, 1992.
Word Count: 1372
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