Earlier this month I was privileged to visit the Georgia O’Keefe exhibit in Chicago’s Art Institute. In a word it was “amazing.” Her whispered tales are also amazing:
Georgia O’Keefe said, “I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life. But I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.”
Georgia was the second of seven children, all raised on a dairy farm near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. In 1887, the year she was born, Sun Prairie was but a dot on the map, and the family’s focus was cows. Still, when Georgia was nine, she decided to become an artist.
After graduating high school, she was accepted at the prestigious School of the Art Institute in Chicago. Georgia ranked at the top of her competitive class. However, after contracting typhoid fever, she was forced to take a year off to recuperate.
Around 1916, as a fluke, Georgia’s friend mailed a few of her charcoal drawings to the renowned New York photographer, Alfred Stieglitz. He exhibited them in his gallery without Georgia’s permission. She was angered. But, at Stieglitz’ request, she moved to New York City, where she begin working seriously as an artist. They married two years later. By the mid-1920s Georgia O’Keefe was recognized as one of America’s most important and successful artists.
Following a breakdown of her marriage and loss of a major mural commission, Georgia made frequent trips to New Mexico’s deserts and mountains, where she painted from dawn to dusk. Years later Georgia moved permanently to New Mexico. Her favorite studio was the backseat of her Model-A Ford. Regardless of the harsh terrain, unrelenting desert sun, and buzzing bees, she often camped and hiked, alone, so she could stay close to landscapes that inspired her.
The renowned artist set down her brushes three times—once to take a “real” job to help her family financially; once to heal after a nervous breakdown; once, after going totally blind, to change mediums from painting to sculpting.
Georgia O’Keefe passed when she was 98 years old. Her everlasting legacy is “never give up what you love.”