Georgia O’Keeffe Biography for Kids
Hello, children, I am Georgia O’Keeffe.
I am an American modern realist painter of the Precisionist movement who is best known for my large close-up paintings of flowers…
…and my paintings of the New Mexico landscape.
I was born in 1887 in Wisconsin.
From an early age, I noticed colors, patterns and light. My father taught me to notice how changes in seasons changed the way the land and sky looked.
Though I attended school in a one-room schoolhouse, I also took art lessons in town. I learned to copy other artists’ works, which is a good way to start, but I grew tired of this and wanted to paint my own pictures.
By 8th grade, I knew I wanted to be an artist, and I wanted to be famous. When my family moved to Williamsburg, Virginia when I was 15, I attended Chatham Hall Episcopal Institute and was a serious artist. The other girls though I acted like a queen of the studio, but I told them: “I am going to live a different life from you girls. I am going to give up everything for my art.”
Though serious about my art, I have a mischievous fun side, and I enjoyed practical jokes and drawing caricatures with my classmates. I often tried to bend or break the rules, and I became editor of the school yearbook.
At the end of my two years at Chatham, I burned many of my watercolors and drawings because when I became famous, I didn’t want anyone to see my early failures.
I went on to take classes at the Art Institute of Chicago where the human figure was emphasized, but I did not enjoy portraits. After becoming ill, I did not return to Chicago, but I enrolled at the Art Students League in New York City and learned to paint still life.
One day, I went to a gallery called 291 to see an exhibit of Auguste Rodin. My life changed that day, for I met the owner of 291, Alfred Stieglitz, who was a famous artist and photographer.
He pushed my view of modern art and seemed to have a vision about which new art had true value. He admired me, and several years later, without my permission, he displayed at his studio some of my charcoals that my friend had shown him in an exhibit called “A Woman on Paper”.
In the meantime, I had run out of money to live in New York, so I lived again in Chicago with my aunt and worked as an illustrator.
Then I taught art in Amarillo, Texas, my first exposure to the Wild West, which I fell in love with. I continued my studies at Columbia Teachers College in New York, then taught art at a college in Columbia, SC.
Eventually, my relationship with Alfred Stieglitz grew, and we married in 1924. I did not take the married name of Stieglitz because I wished to maintain my own identity and independence.
In fact, though we lived together in New York City in the winters…
…and at Lake George in the summers…
…after 1929, I began to spend my summers in New Mexico apart from Alfred. I eventually bought a place called Ghost Ranch where I lived after Alfred died.
While living in New York City, I liked to paint views of the city…
…Brooklyn Bridge…
…and the Hudson River.
Since city life moves fast, I also wanted people to be able to stop and look at nature, so I began to paint large close-up pictures of flowers.
Later, inspired by the New Mexico landscape, I painted the southwestern churches, hills, and bleached bones and skulls I found in the desert.
By 1945, I had achieved my dream of becoming a famous artist. Exhibits of my work opened at the Chicago Institute of Art, and the next year at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Alfred died in 1946, and I moved permanently to New Mexico in 1949. Though I had dreamed of being a famous artist, I preferred to stay out of the public eye and be alone. People can be such an annoying bother. I like to live simply and wear black.
In 1971, I won the Gold Medal for Painting from the National Institute of Arts and Letters, and in 1977, I won the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
You can see my art at a special Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico or at the other large institutions in New York and Washington D.C.
Here’s what you should remember about me.
- I am Georgia O’Keeffe.
- I lived from 1887 to 1986.
- I am a woman who dedicated her life to her art.
- I was married to Alfred Stieglitz.
- I painted in the American Modern Realism and Precisionist movements.
- I am known also for my paintings of giant close-up flowers, New York buildings, and New Mexico landscapes.
Investigate the life and art works of Georgia O’Keeffe in this artist unit study!
Watch the video about me too!
