Biography of Georgia O'Keeffe Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986) was the most successful American woman painter of the 20th century. She was strongly influenced by Columbia University’s Arthur Wesley Dow’s theories, particularly his insistence that a painter develop a unique style. O’Keeffe joined Alfred Stieglitz’s circle during the World War I years and over the next decade gradually adopted his “soil-and-spirit nationalism.” Although her early work was abstract, she soon made a series of magnified flowers that represented natural forms in abstract terms. Looking to develop a spiritual connection to the land by 1929, she had shifted her attention from New York and New England to Abiquiu, New Mexico. In her southwestern work featuring arid landscapes and subtle colors, O’Keeffe combined abstraction with regionalism to create an indigenous American modernism. Among the people that O’Keeffe associated with are: Arthur Dove, Rebecca Salsbury James, Mabel Dodge Luhan, D.H. Lawrence, Henry McBride, Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand. Circle's Edge Database |