Georgia O'Keeffe was born on the 15th of November 1887, near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. Enrolling at the Art Student League in New York in 1907, this is where she met Eugene Speicher (painter and fellow student). Discouraged by her work there O'Keeffe returned to Virginia after a brief stint as a commercial artist in Chicago, where she didn't pick up a brush saying 'the smell of the turpentine made her sick'.

Her first Solo Show was in New York in 1917 after meeting Alfred Stieglitz - a famous photographer and Art impresario - who exhibited 10 of her drawings without her knowledge at his 291 Gallery, she went and confronted him. They became friends and married in 1924.

Living and working in New York until his death in 1946 O'Keeffe moved to Ghost ranch House in New Mexico (which she bought and renovated in 1940) she kept painting until her eyesight failed in the late 1970's, so she became a 3D artist, producing objects in clay until her health failed and she died on the 6th of March 1986 in Santa Fe aged 98.

Theorising

O'Keeffe's art 'echoed her belief in the power and imperishability of nature...her idea of beauty - harmony, proportionality, simplicity and elegance...'

O'Keeffe was trying to get across what people miss out on when they don't look carefully at an object - in particular the flower - showing the depth and fragile nature of a flower in a bold stricking manner. She was interested in the similarities between painting and music. Fluidity of shape and movement, a worms eye view, concealed dimensions, she wished to portray flowers in forms they had never previously been seen (Music - Pink and Blue II, 1919).

Influenced by photography she was led to use its techniques to remove a subject from its context and by enlarging and magnifying concentrate the attention on the nature of the painted subject.

In later life O'Keeffe became highly influences in buildings especially in skyscrapers, (The Shelton with Sunspots, 1926, Oil on Canvas).

'She's an idol for a new generation of feminists and the personification of the modern independent woman.'

The Application of Fludity and Simplicity

'A flower is relatively small. Everyone has many associations with a flower - the idea of a flower [...] So I said to myself - I'll paint what I see - What the flower is to me but I'll paint it big and they will be surprised into taking time to look at it [...]'

O'Keeffe painted large oil paintings of enlarged flowers (and models in later life) she took her enlarged subject and broke down the detail into simple shapes. She looked for simplicity in her studies.

Due to the manner in which O'Keeffe's flowers have been enlarged in her paintings it takes them out of their natural environment and allow the viewer to have a detailed examination of the individual appeal and structure of each flower. O'Keeffe took great care in the manner she painted. All her paintings, whether it is the smooth waxy petals of the lily (Single Lily with Red, 1928, oil on wood) or the soft hairy surface of the iris (Light Iris, 1924, oil on canvas), this remarkably tactile approach to her work is increased by the artists use of an impasto of oil paint creating a thick textured image. O'Keeffe's work was large and simple yet still showing great detail in her work.

Her work is also very colourful and uses an abstract and almost surreal form of painting. She takes natural elements, but presents them in her own particular way - for example in Plums (oil on canvas 1920) - the fruits are magnified, simplified and intensely coloured and the canvas is then cropped to resemble a photographic enlargement. O'Keeffe used the aid of close up photographs of flowers, which were then enlarged to help her obtain her striking close-up detail in her paintings. She also employed a special primer to create a smooth ground on a very fine grade of canvas. (E.g.: The Dark Iris No. II, 1926 (oil on canvas) 22.9 x 17.8cm and Oriental Poppies, 1928 (oil on canvas) 76.2 x 101.9cm))

The simplicity of her flowers, which still show great quantities of detail, her use of strong blocks of colour that blend down to show the shading and movement of the flower appeal strongly. The appeal of her paintings such as Oriental Poppies to lies in their enlargement of something delicate and fragile by using highly saturated reds, oranges and purples applied in a thick impasto to strengthen the appearance of detail without physically painting it in.

O'Keeffe employs the anti-cerne technique letting her enlarged flowers fill the whole canvas. Although she was a leading American Modernist, the influence of Art Nouveau is still apparent in the organic style of her paintings.