georgia o'keeffe watercolors

GEORGIA O’KEEFFE

WATERCOLORS

O’Keeffe married photographer Alfred Stieglitz in 1924. They wrote over 25,000 love letters back and forth to each other over the course of their lives.

O’KEEFFE QUIT PAINTING THREE TIMES.

Once, she quit in order to take on stable jobs to support her family.

Once, she quit due to a nervous breakdown. She didn’t paint for over a year.

Finally, she had to quit due to failing eyesight.

O’Keeffe was known as the mother of American Modernism.

I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for. Georgia O'Keeffe

O’Keeffe managed to continue to paint with watercolors well into her ninety's - despite failing eyesight.

Georgia O’Keeffe went against the standards of watercolor of her day. She did not use watercolor to capture details or to faithfully recreate a scene. Rather, she used them to establish the basic shapes and colors of her scenes. She simplifies her images down to their essential qualities and her feeling towards them.

I had to create an equivalent for what I felt about what I was looking at - not copy it. -Georgia O'Keeffe

Sun-bleached bones were most wonderful against the blue - that blue that will always be there as it is now after all man's destruction is finished. -Georgia O'Keeffe

O’Keeffe used to camp out on the Santa Fe desert in order to be close to her subject.

She also would paint from inside an old Model Ford that she had converted into a studio.

"I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life and I've never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.“

-Georgia O’Keeffe

This slide show is presented by bruceblackart.com for educational purposes only.