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Georgia O'Keeffe

BIRTHDAY Nov. 15, 1887

ABOUT HER
While Georgia O'Keeffe was a student at the Art Student League, a male student at the League asked her to pose for him. She looked annoyed at his request and he commented, "It doesn't matter what you do, I'm going to be a great painter and you will probably end up teaching painting in some girls' school."

Georgia O'Keeffe went on to become one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century. She has had major shows at the Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco Museum of Art, and the Whitney. She was elected to the 50-member American Academy of Arts and Letters, the highest honor possible for an artist.

However, in the year after being asked to pose for the art student she was discouraged with her work. During this period Georgia O'Keeffe did not pick up a brush, and said that the smell of turpentine made her sick.

Slowly she taught herself to paint again, unlearning everything she had been taught in art school and teaching herself instead how she saw the world. When Alfred Stieglitz, a famous art gallery owner, first saw her work he remarked, "At last, a woman on paper!"

In 1971 Georgia O'Keeffe began to go blind. She stopped painting in 1972.

She died on March 6, 1986, at the age of 98.

AWARDS/HONORS

  • Elected to the 50-member American Academy of Arts and Letters
  • First retrospective of a woman's art at the Museum of Modern Art
  • Gold Medal of Painting from the National Institute of Arts and Letters
  • Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor
  • National Medal of Arts, 1985, presented by President Ronald Reagan

QUOTE
"I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me...shapes and ideas so near to me."


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