User:Virginia.Marshall/Georgia O'Keefe

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O'Keeffe moved to New York in 1918 at Stieglitz's request and began working seriously as an artist. They developed a professional and personal relationship that led to their marriage in 1924. She created many forms of abstract art, including close-ups of flowers, such as the Red Canna paintings, that many found to represent vulvas, though O'Keeffe consistently denied that intention. The imputation of the depiction of women's sexuality was also fueled by explicit and sensuous photographs of O'Keeffe that Stieglitz had taken and exhibited.

O'Keeffe and Stieglitz lived together in New York until 1929, when O'Keeffe began spending part of the year in the Southwest, which served as inspiration for her paintings of New Mexico landscapes and images of animal skulls, such as Cow's Skull: Red, White, and Blue and Ram's Head White Hollyhock and Little Hills. After Stieglitz's death, she lived in New Mexico at Georgia O'Keeffe Home and Studio in Abiquiú until the last years of her life, when she lived in Santa Fe. In 2014, O'Keeffe's 1932 painting Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 sold for $44,405,000, more than three times the previous world auction record for any female artist. After her death, the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum was established in Santa Fe.

O'Keeffe's Flowers as Vulvas
Art historian Linda Nochlin interpreted Black Iris III (1926) as a morphological metaphor for vulvas, but O'Keeffe rejected that interpretation, claiming they were just pictures of flowers.

O'Keeffe's lotus paintings may have deeper ties to vulvar imagery and symbolism. In Egyptian mythology, lotus flowers are a symbol of the womb, and in Indian mythology, they are direct symbols for vulvas.

Journalist Paul Rosenfeld commented "[the] Essence of very womanhood permeates her pictures", citing her use of color and shapes as metaphors for the female body. This same article also describes her paintings in a sexual manner.

Criticism Behind the Artwork

Art dealer Samuel Kootz was one of O'Keeffe's critics who although stated she was "the only prominent woman artist", had contrasting opinions. Kootz stated that "assertion of sex can only impede the talents of an artist, for an act of defiance, of grievance, in which the consciousness of these qualities retards the natural assertions of the painter". He insisted that there had to be a phallic meaning behind her unique artwork. However, O'Keeffe stood her ground and for fifty years maintained that there was no connection between vulvas and her artwork.

Firing back to some of the criticism, O'Keeffe stated “When people read erotic symbols into my paintings, they’re really talking about their own affairs”. She refuted this by saying projection was the reason behind other artists' attacks on her work. O'Keeffe was also seen as a revolutionary feminist; however, the artist rejected these notions stating "femaleness is irrelevant" and that “it has nothing to do with art making or accomplishment”.

With the ongoing debate, many artists and fans alike have weighed in with their comments and opinions. However, considering that there has been no definitive proof her flowers are intentionally representing the vulva, the legacy of O'Keeffe's controversy is likely to remain in the art community for years to come.