Georgia O'Keeffe Totto She was an artist who went down in history as the pioneer of American modernism. She was a woman who lived intensely for two centuries; He tried not to show fear and obtained achievements that were denied to the women of his generation.
Being a full-fledged artist, Georgia built a visual proposal from a very young age that made a difference. Their presence gave a boost to creative women that spans to the present. His basic themes were huge flowers and New York skyscrapers..
As usual in artists, passions, feelings and human relationships marked their existence. Recognized with the highest decorations in her homeland, O'Keeffe set the standards of high demand in painting in the United States.
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Georgia O'Keeffe Totto was born on November 15, 1887. She was the second of seven siblings; his parents were a couple of dairy farmers: Francis Calixtus O'Keeffe, Irish; and Ida Totto. He was born in Sun Prairie, state of Wisconsin, in the northern United States.
In that small town, of less than 50 thousand inhabitants, he began his first studies. Georgia and one of her sisters had their first approach to art at the hands of a watercolorist named Sara Mann.
When he was 15 his family moved to Virginia, as his parents decided to set up a concrete block factory. She remained at Madison Central High School.
In 1905 he studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Two years later he entered the Art Students League of New York.
At age 21, she worked as a commercial illustrator because she couldn't afford art studies. However, with a canvas she was awarded the William Merritt Chase Still Life Award. The distinction consisted of a scholarship to the summer school in Lake George, New York..
In that city he visited Gallery 291. There he met the owner of it, Alfred Stieglitz, who marked the rest of his existence.
During the years that Georgia worked as a teacher in cities in Virginia, Texas and South Carolina, she took art courses and specialized. One of his teachers and guides was Arthur Wesley Dow. His influence left its mark on her.
This man posed art as an expression alien to a copy of nature. I saw creation as the result of composition: line, mass and color.
Georgia then advanced in the art of watercolor at the University of Virginia, and in 1915 made a series of abstract charcoal drawings. His quest was to show his inner being.
She sent her works to her friend Anita Pollitzer, who showed them to Alfred Stieglitz. The photographer and gallery owner was enthusiastic and called it the most sincere work he had seen in a long time.
O'Keeffe traveled to New York and in April 1916 10 of her paintings were exhibited in Gallery 219. That same year she was appointed chair of the Art Department at West Texas State Normal College, Canyon. There he deepened the use of intense colors and worked the sunrises and sunsets with blue and green pigments..
Stieglitz was 20 years older than her and, out of her personal and professional admiration, she provided her financial support. It also provided him with a residence and a workshop in New York. They married in 1924.
The artist advanced in her vision both abstract and precious. He worked the detail to the maximum: leaves, flowers and rocks appeared on his canvases. In that year he had already worked 200 paintings with enormous floral details, macro visions.
According to the critics of the time, each work was marked by a marked eroticism; for her, it was the expression of her inner world, of her emotions.
They held a joint exhibition, flowers and photographs, at Galerías Anderson. They then held a retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum. The following year he moved to the 30th floor of the Shelton Hotel and began his pictorial review of the skyscrapers: an intimate vision marked by the lights of the city..
However, his passionate world was complex. Stieglitz discovered a mistress, so Georgia fell ill.
Due to love disappointment, she decided to travel with her friend Rebeca Strand to New Mexico. There she settled in the house of Mabel Dodge Luhan, who supported her for new learning processes.
New Mexico became the best source of inspiration for the artist. Landscapes and architectural spaces became motifs of pictorial inspiration.
In 1943 they mounted a retrospective of his work at the Art Institute of Chicago. Three years later the Museum of Modern Art in New York, MoMA, presented another retrospective. The Whitney Museum of American Art began cataloging all of his work.
By this time Georgia O'Keeffe had established her place in American art history. Interviews and conversations in different parts of the planet marked the rest of his existence.
In 1973, at 86 years of age, he hired young Juan Hamilton as a helper and caretaker. The boy taught her how to handle clay and also helped her write her autobiography.
On March 6, 1986, he died at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, at the age of 98. His ashes were scattered at his Rancho Fantasma residence. His fortune, estimated at $ 76 million, was left to Hamilton.
Georgia's work was characterized by flowers with high erotic symbols. Some of the plants painted by the artist have been related to vaginas. Among these works are Blue line, set of pieces baptized as Series Number 1.
His creation also includes Petunia, No. 2, Black iris, Pink tulip Y Red poppy, among other.
Jack-in-a-Pulpit it was a series of giant flowers made in 1930. One of his great contributions was to introduce a vision and sensitivity that were alien to art. It was an approach from female passion in a world dominated by men.
The same thing happened with his architectural vision of New York: they were structures and landscapes at the same time. At the time, the male critic turned his back on him; They came to say that women had no resources to face modernism.
With his work Black cross with red sky (1929) O'Keefee proves otherwise. In this piece he shows a large cross as the fruit of civilization in front of nature. For her, it is the impact of humanity on the virgin earth.
A third great pictorial theme was the landscapes, bones, desert flowers, and corpses of New Mexico; colors and shapes in an orgy of sensuality.
Georgia O'Keefee Totto marked a route to the feminist movement in the field of art in the United States. In 1966 she was appointed to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences..
In 1971 he was awarded the M. Carey Thomas Award at Bryn Mawr College. In 1973 he received an honorary degree from Harvard University, and in 1977 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom..
She received the National Medal of Arts in 1993 in the National Women's Hall of Fame. In 1996, the US Postal Service issued a 32-cent stamp to commemorate her.
The following year a museum was opened in his honor at his home in Santa Fe. In addition, numerous books have been written about Georgia and several documentaries have been made on American television..
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