Here are some facts about the American artist, Georgia O’Keeffe.
- Georgia O’Keeffe wa born on 15th November 1887 in Wisconsin, United States.
- Her parents were both dairy farmers and she had six brothers and sisters.
- At the age of ten, Georgia O’Keeffe knew she wanted to be an artist and she started to have lessons with Sara Mann, a watercolour painter.
- In 1905, O’Keeffe studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, learning from William Merritt Chase.
- She gave up painting for a while, but took it up again when she went to a class at the University of Virginia taught by Arthur Wesley Dow.
- She married Alfred Stieglitz, a New York modern art promoter and gallery owner, in 1924.
- Her husband organised annual exhibitions of her work and she started to gain a reputation as one of America’s most important artists.
- She was inspired by the scenery of New Mexico and she spent part of the year there painting. In 1949 she moved to the Ghost Ranch region permanently.
- She was presented with the Presidentail Medal of Freedom in 1984.
- As she got older, O’Keeffe started to lose her central vision. She still had peripheral vision and she continued to produce artwork (pencil and charcoal drawings and pottery).
- She died on March 6th 1986. She was 98.
- Her most well-known work features objects enlarged and painted as if viewed through a magnifying glass. She is also known for her landscapes of the badlands of New Mexico.
