Georgia O’KeeffeA Pioneer in American Art

Notes of the Author

The following presentation is part of a bigger contribution on Georgia O’Keeffe and her democratic approach to Art in America.

The presentation here misses all the bibliographical references which are instead listed in the related article, REDRAWING THE OUTLINES OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY IN GEORGIA O’KEEFFE’S ART AND WORLD.

Cristiana Pagliarusco

‘To create one's own world, in any of the arts, takes courage’.

1887-1986

Alexis de Tocqueville

‘Life is to be entered upon with courage’

‘I was the sort of child that ate around the raisin on the cookies and ate around the hole in the doughnut saving either the raisin or the hole for the last and

best’

Georgia O’Keeffe1915

‘I decided to start anew – to strip away what I had been taught – to accept as true my own thinking. This was one of my best times of my life. […] I was alone and singularly free, working into my own, unknown – no one to satisfy but myself.’

Georgia O’Keeffe

‘One day seven years ago I found myself saying to myself - I can't live where I want to - I can't go where I want to go - I can't do what I want to - I can't even say what I want to... I decided I was a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted to.’ (1914 to her husband-to-be Alfred Stieglitz)

Walt WhitmanSong of the Open Road

[…]

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,

Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,

Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,

Strong and content I travel the open road.

[…]

Walt Whitman Song of the Open Road

[…]

Have the past struggles succeeded?

What has succeeded? yourself? your nation? Nature?

Now understand me well—it is provided in the essence of things that from any fruition of success, no matter what, shall come forth something to make a greater struggle necessary. […]

Toni Morrison

‘I'm not entangled in shaping my work according to other people's views of how I should have done it.’

‘I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way – things I had no

words for.’

‘

1919-1926

‘I had never lived up so high before and was so excited that I began talking about trying to paint New York. Of course, I was told it was an impossible idea – even the men hadn’t done too well with it . […] The next year Stieglitz had a small corner room at the Andreson Galleries. There were three large windows. As you entered you saw my first New York between two windows.

[…] My large New York was sold the first afternoon.’

An ‘outsider’ in the early 1920s

• ‘It was in the time when men didn’t think much of what I was doing. They were all discussing Cézanne…’

Radiator Building

The inward eye

Georgia O’Keeffe to Eleanor Roosevelt

See the letter

Toni Morrison

‘Women's rights is not only an abstraction, a cause; it is also a personal affair. It is not only about us; it is also about me and you. Just the two of us.’

relationships

• O’Keeffe’s letters can be seen as her research for correspondences, between color (SHE) and lines (HER INTERLOCUTORS)

• HER OBJECTS/SUBJECTS DEVELOPED INTO ABSTRACTIONS

‘HER ONENESS WITH HERSELF’ Juan Hamilton

Georgia O’Keeffe

Where I was born and where and how I have lived is unimportant. It is what I have done with where I have been that should be of interest.

Toni Morrison

‘Somebody has to take responsibility for being a leader.’

Georgia O’Keeffe

‘I am particularly amused and pleased that my tap of emotions was closed… it ia wonderful: all those women who appreciate my works will have the feeling to be intellectual. It is indeed magnificient, and the men will repute them even more harmless if my method is the French one (in reference to the definition given by McBride about the fact the painter would plan the work in her mind before starting it up).

Samples of Letters for Reference

• Lula Mae Blocton

• Winona Woods

• Anita Wood

Available at the Beinecke Library Digital Archivehttp://brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/Search/Results?lookfor=okeeffe&limit=10&sort=relevance