User:Gswizz44/sandbox

In 20th Century art, Georgia O'Keeffe had been considered an essential role. "The abstract works she created throughout her career have remained overlooked by critics and the public in favor of her representational subjects." O'Keeffe took great leaps to push the boundaries of abstraction, and did so through specific pieces. "In 1915, O'Keeffe leaped into abstraction with a group of charcoal drawings that were among the most radical creations produced in the United States at that time." In these pieces, O'Keeffe tried to explain the reasons for emotion and show the unavoidable qualities they have. "While her output of abstract work declined after 1930, she returned to abstraction in the mid-1940's with a new vocabulary that provided a precedent for a younger generation of abstractionists. By devoting itself to this largely unexplored area of her work, Georgia O’Keeffe: Abstraction is an overdue acknowledgment of her place as one of America’s first abstract artists."

"Georgia O'Keeffe's sexually independent manner set her outside the norms of conventional feminine behavior. Her abstract paintings from the mid-1920’s of flowers look like veiled representations of female genitalia and prominent art historians have later linked her work to feminist artists of the 1970’s." O'Keefe seemed to have linked different parts of nature and biology together.

"O’Keeffe’s compound in Abiquiu was in ruins when she purchased it from the Catholic Church. For the next four years, she supervised its restoration and converted it to a livable adobe home and studio with spectacular views of the surrounding countryside. The Abiquiu Home and Studio is open for tours by appointment."

Georgia O’Keeffe’s distinctive flower paintings, New Mexico desert landscapes and images of animal skulls made her an icon of American Modernism. Her technique of magnifying and focusing on the details of objects can be seen in her most famous paintings:  Black Iris III; Cow’s Skull: Red, White and Blue; and Jimson Weed, White Flower No. 1.

Contrary to popular belief, flower paintings are only but a small percentage of O'Keefe's creations, although these have gained the most support.

"For decades, critics assumed that O'Keeffe's flowers were intended as homages—or at the very least, allusions—to the female form. But in 1943, she insisted that they had it all wrong, saying, “Well—I made you take time to look at what I saw and when you took time to really notice my flowers you hung all your own associations with flowers on my flower and you write about my flower as if I think and see what you think and see of the flower—and I don’t.” So there."

During O'Keefe's career, she had found herself quitting painting altogether a total of three times. "The first break spanned several years (the exact number is a matter of debate), when O'Keeffe took on more stable jobs to help her family through financial troubles. In the early 1930s, a nervous breakdown led to her hospitalization, and caused her to set aside her brushes for more than a year."

"In the years leading up to her death in 1986, failing eyesight forced O'Keeffe to give up painting entirely. Until then, she fought hard to keep working, enlisting assistants to prepare her canvas and mix her oil paints for pieces like 1977's Sky Above Clouds/Yellow Horizon and Clouds. She managed to use watercolors until she was 95."