Georgia O’Keeffe “Horse’s Skull with White Rose”, 1931. Private collection

“Indian Doll” by Beatrice Brandini 

Extraordinary artist with her paintings changed the course of modern art history, giving realism to a new connotation, that of Precisionism, independent art movement, of which O’Keeffe was a pioneer.

Georgia O’Keeffe ram’s head – Hollyhock white – small hills, 1935. Collection Milton and Edith A. Lowenthal 

Born in Wisconsin, she began as an illustrator in Chicago, the turning point came from the knowledge of Arthur Wesley Dow, an artist whose poetry expressed through feelings that the artist felt and lived, of which O’Keeffe becomes a student through a course for teachers. However, the most important meeting will be the one with Alfred Stieglitz, an important photographer and gallery in New York, evrywhere famous in America, who became his mentor and life partner. The two artists compete in the same subjects, influencing each other. The approach and familiarity with the photographic medium by O’Keeffe, will allow her to develop a more grounded realism, abstract though.

Georgia O’Keeffe “From the lake”, 1924

Georgia O’Keeffe “Evening star VI”, 1917

Georgia O’Keeffe will come to fruition in the artistic community with unprecedented results in a historical period in which this possibility and reality was given exclusively to men.

Georgia O’Keeffe “Black Iris”, 1906

Georgia O’Keeffe “Calle”, 1929

Georgia O’Keeffe ”Poppies”, 1950

In 1924 Stieglitz married a few years later will be the peak of her creative expression with the famous floral subjects , macroscopic sensual flowers, destined to become icons, and artistic influence throughout the twentieth century American .

She was the first female artist to exhibit at the MOMA in New York. The first female artist to which America has dedicated a museum, the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum.

Personally I find that the flowers of Georgia O’Keeffe is something wonderful, different, unique. If you see them the first time you stay hit , like a vision that ‘s unlikely to disappear from your mind and your heart. But beyond the personal feeling of each , if you believe that these flowers are born to ” mistake ” to ” search ” for ” feeling ” in the words of Georgia O’Keeffe ‘s explanation there is all her incredible pragmatism: “No one really sees the flowers – they are too small – we have not time – and to see takes time , like to have a friend … So I said to myself – I’ll paint what I see – what the flower is to me, but the I’ll paint it big and they will be surprised to waste their time looking at them – I can make that even busy New Yorkers stopped to see what I see of flowers. ” Georgia O’Keeffe

Georgia O’Keeffe “Red Hill and White Shell”, 1938

Georgia O’Keeffe “Bucranio with Calico Roses, 1931 The Art Institute of Chicago. 

An independent artist with an immense need for solitude and disinclined-labeling, often adopt different techniques and subjects when you feel misunderstood by critics, especially for men (the only one in those years), looking for new forms of expression, and it put into play.

Georgia O’Keeffe “Oak leaves”, 1929

Georgia O’Keeffe “Jack in the pulpit”, 1930

To find peace and inspiration will leave for New Mexico, where she spent entire summers to paint before moving there permanently in 1949, after the death of her husband. From here to the mid-seventies she painted tirelessly, haunting beauty of landscapes, flowers and very sensual abstract. She will captivate the raw and rugged landscapes of the desert, here come the famous bleached skulls of animals abandoned in the desert, or the hills strewn with rocks and shells. “There is nothing abstract in these pictures are what I’ve seen, and for me they are very realistic.” Georgia O’Keeffe

Georgia O’Keeffe “Light Iris” 1924

Georgia O’Keeffe, “Black and purple Petunias”

In the early seventies she was struck by an illness that forced her from view to reduce its production. He died in 1986 at the age of 98.

    

Charlize Theron photographed by Mario Testino, Vogue U.S. 2009. Homage to Georgia O’Keeffe

    

Charlize Theron photographed by Mario Testino, Vogue U.S. 2009. Homage to Georgia O’Keeffe

I love Georgia O’Keeffe … always , of course, her art , her artistic talent, her poetry , but also her enormous dignity , her going against the rules and conformity …. An artist who was trying to derive satisfaction from her work, and not to please anyone but herself.

” In the fall of 1915 for the first time I had the idea that everything I had been taught had little value to me , except for the use of materials … After careful thought , I decided that I would not have passed the my life to do what had already been done . Hanging on the wall all the work I was doing for many months . then I sat down and looked at them. could see how each painting or drawing was done favoring a teacher or the other, and I said to myself ‘ I have things in my head that does not resemble anything of what I was taught – shapes and ideas so near to me, so natural to my way of thinking and being ….. I decided to start from scratch , to accept as true the way I think. This was one of the best times of my life. nobody was watching what I was doing , no question, no one who expressed opinions of some kind. Was alone and singularly free , working on what belonged to me , stranger, to satisfy anyone except myself” . Georgia O’Keeffe

    

Giorgia O’Keeffe’s mood… by Beatrice Brandini

Georgia O’Keeffe photographed by Bruce Weber, private collection 

Goodbye big Georgia, I hope that from there you can observe landscapes that wonderfully portray as aerial views, serene and finally satisfied.

Good life to all!

Beatrice