Georgia O’Keeffe

Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O’Keeffe, 1920/1922. Gelatin silver print 4 1/2 x 3 9/16 in. Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. Gift of The Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum

From 1905 to 1906, Georgia O’Keeffe attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1907, she took classes at the Art Students League in New York. The following year, she began working as a commercial artist, a position she held until 1910. For six months in 1914, she studied with Arthur Wesley Dow at the Teachers College, Columbia University, New York. Toward the end of 1915, she created a series of charcoal abstractions, which Alfred Stieglitz exhibited at his 291 gallery in 1916.

Between 1918 and 1928, she and Stieglitz, whom she married in 1924, spent each summer and fall at the Stieglitz farm on Lake George, New York. From 1929 to 1945, O’Keeffe spent her summers in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which she had first visited in 1917. In addition to painting the New Mexico landscape, she frequently attended seasonal Native American dances at the local pueblos.

Tony Vaccaro, O’Keeffe Opening the Curtains of her Studio, 1960. Gelatin silver print. 18 ½ x 12 ¼ in. Georgia O’Keeffe Museum © Tony Vaccaro

In 1934, she paid her first visit to Ghost Ranch, a dude ranch near Abiquiu, New Mexico, buying a property on its grounds in 1940. In 1945, she purchased a house in Abiquiu, to which she moved permanently in 1949. She received the American Medal of Freedom in 1977, and the National Medal of Arts in 1985.

Biography authored by Emily Schuchardt Navratil, PhD, Assistant Curator for the Vilcek and the Vilcek Foundation art collections. Used with permission of Merrell Publishers, London and New York.