View source for Georgia O'Keeffe

{{short description|American modernist artist (1887–1986)}}
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{{Use mdy dates|date=November 2020}}
{{for|the 2009 film|Georgia O'Keeffe (film){{!}}''Georgia O'Keeffe'' (film)}}
{{Infobox artist
| name = Georgia O'Keeffe
| image = Georgia O'Keeffe MET DP230868.jpg
| caption = O'Keeffe in 1932, photograph by [[Alfred Stieglitz]]
| birth_name = Georgia Totto O'Keeffe
| birth_date = {{birth date|1887|11|15|mf=y}}
| birth_place = [[Sun Prairie (town), Wisconsin|Sun Prairie, Wisconsin]], U.S.
| death_date = {{death date and age|1986|3|6|1887|11|15|mf=y}}
| death_place = [[Santa Fe, New Mexico]], U.S.
| education = [[School of the Art Institute of Chicago]]<br />[[Columbia College (South Carolina)|Columbia College]]<br />[[Teachers College, Columbia University]]<br />[[University of Virginia]]<br />[[Art Students League of New York]]
| movement = [[American modernism]], [[Precisionism]]
| spouse = {{marriage|[[Alfred Stieglitz]]|1924|July 13, 1946|end=his death}}
| family = [[Ida O'Keeffe]] (sister)
| awards = [[National Medal of Arts]] (1985)<br />[[Presidential Medal of Freedom]] (1977)<br />[[Edward MacDowell Medal]] (1972)
| patrons =
| imagesize =
| field = Visual arts: painting, sculpture, photography
| training =
| works =
}}

'''Georgia Totto O'Keeffe''' (November 15, 1887{{snd}} March 6, 1986) was an American [[Modernism|modernist]] painter and [[drafter|draftswoman]] whose career spanned seven decades and whose work remained largely independent of major [[art movement]]s. Called the "Mother of American modernism", O'Keeffe gained international recognition for her paintings of natural forms, particularly flowers and desert-inspired landscapes, which were often drawn from and related to places and environments in which she lived.<ref name="cspan"/><ref name=":6">{{Cite web |last=Messinger |first=Lisa |date=October 2004 |title=Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/geok/hd_geok.htm |access-date=2023-05-29 |website=Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History |publisher=The Metropolitan Museum of Art |place=New York |language=en |archive-date=July 12, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230712004013/https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/geok/hd_geok.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>

From 1905, when O'Keeffe began her studies at the [[School of the Art Institute of Chicago]], until about 1920, she studied art or earned money as a commercial illustrator or a teacher to pay for further education.<ref name="EB">{{cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Georgia-OKeeffe|title=Georgia O'Keeffe {{!}} American painter|website=Encyclopedia Britannica|access-date=October 11, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190929173110/https://www.britannica.com/biography/Georgia-OKeeffe|archive-date=September 29, 2019|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="NCMA">{{cite web |title=Georgia O'Keeffe |url=https://learn.ncartmuseum.org/artists/georgia-okeeffe/ |url-status=deviated |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230626184851/https://learn.ncartmuseum.org/artists/georgia-okeeffe/ |archive-date=June 26, 2023 |access-date=June 26, 2023 |publisher=The North Carolina Museum of Art}}</ref> Influenced by [[Arthur Wesley Dow]], O'Keeffe began to develop her unique style beginning with her watercolors from her studies at the [[O'Keeffe at the University of Virginia, 1912–1914|University of Virginia]] and more dramatically in the charcoal drawings that she produced in 1915 that led to total abstraction. [[Alfred Stieglitz]], an art dealer and photographer, held an exhibit of her works in 1917.<ref>{{Cite book|title=50 women artists you should know|last=Christiane|first=Weidemann|date=2008|publisher=Prestel|others=Larass, Petra., Klier, Melanie|isbn=978-3-7913-3956-6|location=Munich|oclc=195744889|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/50womenartistsyo0000weid|access-date=March 4, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200404213413/https://archive.org/details/50womenartistsyo0000weid|archive-date=April 4, 2020|url-status=live}}</ref> Over the next couple of years, she taught and continued her studies at the [[Teachers College, Columbia University]].

She moved to [[New York (state)|New York]] in 1918 at Stieglitz's request and began working seriously as an artist.<ref>{{cite web |title=Georgia O'Keeffe |url=https://www.macdowell.org/artists/georgia-okeeffe |publisher=MacDowell |access-date=June 26, 2023 |archive-date=June 26, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230626185047/https://www.macdowell.org/artists/georgia-okeeffe |url-status=live }}</ref> They developed a professional and personal relationship that led to their marriage on December 11, 1924.<ref name="Marriage date">{{Cite web |title=Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) – TSHA Gala featuring Clay Walker |url=https://tsha.wildapricot.org/event-5385912 |access-date=2024-02-28 |website=tsha.wildapricot.org}}</ref> O'Keeffe created many forms of abstract art, including close-ups of flowers, such as the ''[[Red Canna (paintings)|Red Canna]]'' paintings, that many found to represent vulvas,<ref>{{Cite journal|date=November 9, 1987|title=An unabashedly sensual approach to a genteel genre|journal=Newsweek|volume=110|pages=74–75|via=Readers' Guide Abstracts}}</ref> though O'Keeffe consistently denied that intention.<ref name="Lonely palette">{{cite podcast |last1=Avishai |first1=Tamar |title=Episode 45: Georgia O'Keeffe's Deer's Skull With Pedernal (1936) |url=http://www.thelonelypalette.com/episodes/2020/2/20/episode-45-georgia-okeeffes-deer-skull-with-pedernal-1936 |website=The Lonely Palette |access-date=25 December 2020}}</ref> 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]]'' (1931) and [[Summer Days (Georgia O'Keeffe)|''Summer Days'']] (1936)''.'' After Stieglitz's death in 1946, she lived in New Mexico for the next 40 years at [[Georgia O'Keeffe Home and Studio|her home and studio]] or [[Ghost Ranch]] summer home in [[Abiquiú, New Mexico|Abiquiú]], and in the last years of her life, in [[Santa Fe, New Mexico|Santa Fe]]. In 2014, O'Keeffe's 1932 painting ''[[Jimson Weed (painting)|Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1]]'' sold for $44,405,000—at the time, by far the largest price paid for any painting by a female artist.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Rile |first1=Karen |title=Georgia O'Keeffe and the $44 Million Jimson Weed |url=https://daily.jstor.org/georgia-okeeffe-and-the-44-million-jimson-weed/ |work=JSTOR Daily |date=1 December 2014 |access-date=March 31, 2022 |archive-date=December 4, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211204225956/https://daily.jstor.org/georgia-okeeffe-and-the-44-million-jimson-weed/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Her works are in the collections of several museums, and following her death, the [[Georgia O'Keeffe Museum]] was established in Santa Fe.

==Early life and education (1887–1916)==
[[File:"The Checkered Dress" by Hilda Belcher.jpg|thumb|left|175px|[[Hilda Belcher]], ''The Checkered Dress'', 1907, Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College. The painting is likely a portrait of Georgia O'Keeffe.{{efn|[[Vassar College]] and the [[Smithsonian Institution]] state that the sitter is identified as O'Keeffe.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_1932.1.5 |title=The Checkered Dress |publisher=National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution |access-date=July 4, 2023 |archive-date=July 1, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230701182323/https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_1932.1.5 |url-status=live }}</ref> The book ''A Woman on Paper: Georgia O'Keeffe'' by [[Anita Pollitzer]] states that the painting is a portrait of O'Keeffe.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://emuseum.vassar.edu/objects/493/the-checkered-dress-portrait-of-okeeffe |title=The Checkered Dress |publisher=emuseum, Vassar |access-date=July 4, 2023 |archive-date=July 1, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230701182309/http://emuseum.vassar.edu/objects/493/the-checkered-dress-portrait-of-okeeffe |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/details/womanonpapergeor0000poll/page/94/mode/1up?q=+%22Checkered+Dress%22 |title=A woman on paper : Georgia O'Keeffe |year=1988 | page=94}}</ref> The [[Georgia O'Keeffe Museum]] does not say the painting is of O'Keeffe, but the record of the painting is filed in a category for Georgia O'Keeffe photographs and clippings.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://archive.okeeffemuseum.org/repositories/2/archival_objects/3300 |title=The Checkered Dress by Hilda Belcher, clipping, undated |publisher=Georgia O'Keeffe Museum |access-date=July 4, 2023 |archive-date=July 1, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230701182413/http://archive.okeeffemuseum.org/repositories/2/archival_objects/3300 |url-status=live }}</ref>}}]]

Georgia O'Keeffe was born on November 15, 1887,<ref name="Biography channel">{{cite web |date=August 26, 2016 |title=Georgia O'Keeffe |url=http://www.biography.com/people/georgia-okeeffe-9427684 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170116161339/http://www.biography.com/people/georgia-okeeffe-9427684 |archive-date=January 16, 2017 |access-date=January 14, 2017 |website=Biography Channel |publisher=A&E Television Networks}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/vitalrecords/index.asp?id=2986934&record_type=b|title=Birth Record Details|publisher=Wisconsin Historical Society|access-date=July 23, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121107022620/http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/vitalrecords/index.asp?id=2986934&record_type=b|archive-date=November 7, 2012}}</ref> in a farmhouse in the town of [[Sun Prairie (town), Wisconsin|Sun Prairie, Wisconsin]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Birthplace of Georgia O'Keeffe |url=http://www.cityofsunprairie.com/541/Birthplace-of-Georgia-OKeeffe |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160729022203/http://www.cityofsunprairie.com/541/Birthplace-of-Georgia-OKeeffe |archive-date=July 29, 2016 |website=Sun Prairie, WI}}</ref><ref>Wisconsin Legislature. [https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/statutes/statutes/84/1021 2013–14 Wisconsin Statutes 2013–14 S.84.1021 Georgia O'Keeffe Memorial Highway.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150928125825/https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/statutes/statutes/84/1021 |date=September 28, 2015 }}</ref> Her parents, Francis Calyxtus O'Keeffe and Ida (Totto) O'Keeffe, were dairy farmers. Her father was of Irish descent. Her mother's father, George Victor Totto, for whom O'Keeffe was named, was a Hungarian [[count]] who came to the United States in 1848.<ref name="Biography channel" /><ref name="roxana">{{cite book |last=Robinson|first=Roxana|title=Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life |location=Hanover|publisher=University Press of New England |year=1989 |isbn=0-87451-906-3 |pages=191–193}}</ref>

O'Keeffe was the second of seven children.<ref name="Biography channel" /> She attended Town Hall School in Sun Prairie.<ref name="Hopkins Reily">{{cite book|author=Nancy Hopkins Reily|title=Georgia O'keeffe, a Private Friendship: Walking the Sun Prairie Land|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o2xJ0ZZWmyEC&pg=PA54|year=2007|publisher=Sunstone Press|isbn=978-0-86534-451-8|page=54}}</ref> By age 10, she had decided to become an artist.<ref name="Columbus Museum of Art p. 76">{{citation |editor-last=Roberts |editor-first=Norma J. |title=The American Collections |publisher=[[Columbus Museum of Art]] |year=1988 |isbn=0-8109-1811-0 |page=[https://archive.org/details/americancollecti0000colu/page/76 76] |url=https://archive.org/details/americancollecti0000colu/page/76 }}</ref> With her sisters, [[Ida O'Keeffe|Ida]] and Anita,<ref>{{Cite book|title=Ida O'Keeffe: Escaping Georgia's Shadow|last=Canterbury|first=Sue|publisher=Dallas Museum of Art|year=2018|isbn=978-0-300-21456-7|location=Dallas, Texas|pages=15}}</ref> she received art instruction from local watercolorist Sara Mann. O'Keeffe attended high school at [[Edgewood High School of the Sacred Heart|Sacred Heart Academy]] in Madison, Wisconsin, as a boarder between 1901 and 1902. In late 1902, the O'Keeffes moved from Wisconsin to the close-knit neighborhood of [[Peacock Hill]] in [[Williamsburg, Virginia]], where O'Keeffe's father started a business making [[rusticated concrete block|rusticated cast concrete block]] in anticipation of a demand for the block in the [[Virginia Peninsula]] building trade, but the demand never materialized.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.colonialwilliamsburg.org/learn/research-and-education/|title=Colonial Williamsburg Research & Education|website=www.colonialwilliamsburg.org|access-date=April 9, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200409102957/https://www.colonialwilliamsburg.org/learn/research-and-education/|archive-date=April 9, 2020|url-status=live}}</ref> O'Keeffe stayed in Wisconsin attending [[Madison Central High School (Wisconsin)|Madison Central High School]]<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Rath |first1=Sara |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fwsrAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA91 |title=Madison and Dane County |last2=Smith |first2=Rick |date=1977 |publisher=Tamarack Press |isbn=978-0-915024-13-1 |page=91 |language=en |access-date=July 25, 2023 |archive-date=July 25, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230725005251/https://books.google.com/books?id=fwsrAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA91 |url-status=live }}</ref> until joining her family in Virginia in 1903. She completed high school as a boarder at Chatham Episcopal Institute in Virginia (now [[Chatham Hall]]), graduating in 1905. At Chatham, she was a member of [[Kappa Delta]] sorority.<ref name="Biography channel" /><ref name="Hopkins Reily" />

O'Keeffe taught and headed the art department at [[West Texas State Normal College]], watching over her youngest sibling, Claudia, at her mother's request.<ref>{{cite book|author=Gerry Souter|title=Georgia O'Keeffe|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=As0dAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA34|year=2017|publisher=Parkstone International|isbn=978-5-457-46766-8|pages=34–35}}</ref> In 1917, she visited her brother, Alexis, at a military camp in Texas before he shipped out for Europe during [[World War I]]. While there, she created the painting ''[[The Flag (O'Keeffe painting)|The Flag]]'',<ref name="NYT">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/05/arts/design/review-world-war-i-the-quick-the-dead-the-artists.html|title=World War I: The Quick. The Dead. The Artists|newspaper=The New York Times|author=Holland Cotter|date=January 5, 2017|access-date=January 16, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170111224036/https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/05/arts/design/review-world-war-i-the-quick-the-dead-the-artists.html|archive-date=January 11, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref> which expressed her anxiety and depression about the war.<ref name="roxana" />

<gallery mode="packed" heights="200px" widths="250px" caption="Early works">
File:Georgia O'Keeffe, Untitled, vase of flowers, 1903 to 1905.tif|''Untitled (Vase of Flowers)'', 1903–1905, watercolor on paper, [[Georgia O'Keeffe Museum]]

File: Untitled, dead rabbit with the copper pot by O'Keeffe 1908.jpg|''Untitled (Dead Rabbit with the Copper Pot)'', 1908, [[Art Students League of New York]]

File:Rotunda at the University of Virginia 1914 by Georgia O’Keeffe.jpg|''[[O'Keeffe at the University of Virginia, 1912–1914|Scrapbook (The Rotunda at University of Virginia)]]'', 1912–1914, watercolor on paper, [[University of Virginia]]
</gallery>

=== Academic training ===
{{Further|Early works of Georgia O'Keeffe}}
[[File:Georgia O'Keeffe UVa.jpg|thumb|upright|Georgia O'Keeffe as a teaching assistant to Alon Bement at the [[University of Virginia]] in 1915]]
From 1905 to 1906, O'Keeffe was enrolled at the [[School of the Art Institute of Chicago]], where she studied with [[John Vanderpoel]] and ranked at the top of her class.<ref name="Biography channel" /><ref name="Columbus Museum of Art p. 76" /> As a result of contracting [[typhoid fever]], she had to take a year off from her education.<ref name="Biography channel" /> In 1907, she attended the [[Art Students League of New York|Art Students League]] in New York City, where she studied under [[William Merritt Chase]], [[Kenyon Cox]], and [[F. Luis Mora]].<ref name="Biography channel" /> In 1908, she won the League's William Merritt Chase still-life prize for her oil painting ''[[Early works of Georgia O'Keeffe|Dead Rabbit with Copper Pot]]''. Her prize was a scholarship to attend the League's outdoor summer school in [[Lake George (village), New York|Lake George]], New York.<ref name="Biography channel" /> While in New York City, O'Keeffe visited galleries, such as [[291 (art gallery)|291]], co-owned by her future husband, photographer Alfred Stieglitz. The gallery promoted the work of avant-garde artists and photographers from the United States and Europe.<ref name="Biography channel" />

In 1908, O'Keeffe discovered that she would not be able to finance her studies. Her father had gone bankrupt and her mother was seriously ill with [[tuberculosis]].<ref name="Biography channel" /> She was not interested in a career as a painter based on the mimetic tradition that had formed the basis of her art training.<ref name="Columbus Museum of Art p. 76" /> She took a job in [[Chicago]] as a commercial artist and worked there until 1910, when she returned to Virginia to recuperate from the [[measles]]<ref name="ABJ">{{cite news|url=https://www.abqjournal.com/892656/artistic-2.html|title=Never-before-exhibited O'Keeffe paintings show shift to abstraction|author=Kathaleen Roberts|website=Albuquerque Journal|date=November 20, 2016|access-date=January 14, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170116172527/https://www.abqjournal.com/892656/artistic-2.html|archive-date=January 16, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref> and later moved with her family to [[Charlottesville, Virginia]].<ref name="Biography channel" /> She did not paint for four years and said that the smell of [[turpentine]] made her ill.<ref name="Columbus Museum of Art p. 76" /> She began teaching art in 1911. One of her positions was at her former school, Chatham Episcopal Institute, in Virginia.<ref name="Biography channel" /><ref name="Junker p. 184">{{cite book|author1=Amon Carter Museum of Western Art|author2=Patricia A. Junker|author3=Will Gillham|title=An American Collection: Works from the Amon Carter Museum|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZY4SSPuxaHcC&pg=PA184|year=2001|publisher=Hudson Hills|isbn=978-1-55595-198-6|page=184}}</ref>

=== First abstractions ===
She took a summer art class in 1912 at the [[University of Virginia]] from [[Alon Bement]], who was a [[Columbia University Teachers College]] faculty member. Under Bement, she learned of the innovative ideas of [[Arthur Wesley Dow]], Bement's colleague. Dow's approach was influenced by principles of design and composition in Japanese art. She began to experiment with abstract compositions and develop a personal style that veered away from realism.<ref name="Biography channel" /><ref name="Columbus Museum of Art p. 76" /> From 1912 to 1914, she taught art in the public schools in [[Amarillo, Texas|Amarillo]] in the [[Texas Panhandle]], and was a teaching assistant to Bement during the summers.<ref name="Biography channel" /> She took classes at the University of Virginia for two more summers.<ref name="UVA">{{cite web|url=https://news.virginia.edu/content/how-uva-shaped-georgia-okeeffe|title=How UVA shaped Georgia O'Keeffe|website=University of Virginia|date=November 10, 2016|access-date=January 14, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170116174926/https://news.virginia.edu/content/how-uva-shaped-georgia-okeeffe|archive-date=January 16, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref> She also took a class in the spring of 1914 at Teachers College of Columbia University with Dow, who further influenced her thinking about the process of making art.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Zilczer |first= Judith |year=1999|title='Light Coming on the Plains': Georgia O'Keeffe's Sunrise Series |journal=[[Artibus et Historiae]] |volume=20 |number=40 |pages=193–194 |jstor=1483675|doi= 10.2307/1483675 }}</ref> Her studies at the University of Virginia, based upon Dow's principles, were pivotal in O'Keeffe's development as an artist. Through her exploration and growth as an artist, she helped to establish the [[American modernism]] movement.

<gallery caption="First abstractions" mode="packed" heights="200px" widths="250px">
File:Drawing No. 2 by Georgia O'Keeffe 1915 NGA.tif|'' Special Drawing No. 2'', 1915, charcoal on laid paper, [[National Gallery of Art]]

File:Georgia O'Keefe, No. 8 Special, 1916.jpg|''Special No. 8'', 1916, charcoal on paper, [[Whitney Museum]]

File:Georgia O'Keeffe, Sunrise, watercolor, 1916.tif|''Sunrise'', 1916, watercolor on paper
</gallery>

She taught at [[Columbia College (South Carolina)|Columbia College]] in [[Columbia, South Carolina]] in late 1915, where she completed a series of highly innovative [[Charcoal drawings by Georgia O'Keeffe from 1915|charcoal abstractions]]<ref name="Columbus Museum of Art p. 76" /> based on her personal sensations.<ref name="Junker p. 184" /> In early 1916, O'Keeffe was in New York at Teachers College, Columbia University. She mailed the charcoal drawings to a friend and former classmate at Teachers College, Anita Pollitzer, who took them to Alfred Stieglitz at his 291 gallery early in 1916.<ref name="Tufts">{{cite book|author1=Eleanor Tufts|author2=National Museum of Women in the Arts|author3=International Exhibitions Foundation|title=American women artists, 1830–1930|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EvxPAAAAMAAJ|year=1987|publisher=International Exhibitions Foundation for the National Museum of Women in the Arts|isbn=978-0-940979-01-7|page=81|access-date=January 20, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170427093931/https://books.google.com/books?id=EvxPAAAAMAAJ|archive-date=April 27, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref> Stieglitz found them to be the "purest, finest, sincerest things that had entered 291 in a long while" and said that he would like to show them. In April that year, Stieglitz exhibited ten of her drawings at 291.<ref name="Biography channel" /><ref name="Columbus Museum of Art p. 76" />

After further course work at Columbia in early 1916 and summer teaching for Bement,<ref name="Biography channel" /> she became the chair of the art department at [[West Texas A&M University|West Texas State Normal College]], in [[Canyon, Texas]], beginning in the fall of 1916.<ref name="JSTOR p. 191">{{cite journal |last=Zilczer |first=Judith |year=1999 |title='Light Coming on the Plains': Georgia O'Keeffe's Sunrise Series |journal=[[Artibus et Historiae]] |volume=20 |pages=191–208 |doi=10.2307/1483675 |jstor=1483675 |number=40}}</ref> O'Keeffe, who enjoyed sunrises and sunsets, developed a fondness for intense and nocturnal colors. Building upon a practice she began in South Carolina, O'Keeffe painted to express her most private sensations and feelings. Rather than sketching out a design before painting, she freely created designs. O'Keeffe continued to experiment until she believed she truly captured her feelings in the watercolor, ''[[Light Coming on the Plains]] No. I'' (1917).<ref name="Junker p. 184" />

<gallery caption="Abstractions" mode="packed" heights="200px" widths="250px">
File:Georgia O'Keeffe, Light Coming on the Plains No. II, 1917, CMAA.tif|''Light Coming on the Plains No. II'', 1917, watercolor on newsprint paper, [[Amon Carter Museum of American Art]]

File:Georgia O'Keeffe, Series 1, No. 8.jpg|''Series 1, No. 8'', 1918, oil painting on canvas, [[Lenbachhaus]], Munich

File:Blue-green.jpg|''[[Blue and Green Music]]'', 1921, oil on canvas, [[Art Institute of Chicago]]
</gallery>

She began a series of watercolor paintings based upon the scenery and expansive views during her walks,<ref name="Junker p. 184" /><ref name="Udall">{{cite book |author=Sharyn Rohlfsen Udall |url=https://archive.org/details/carrokeeffekahlo0000udal |title=Carr, O'Keeffe, Kahlo: Places of Their Own |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-300-09186-1 |page=[https://archive.org/details/carrokeeffekahlo0000udal/page/114 114] |url-access=registration}}</ref> including [[Palo Duro Canyon paintings of O'Keeffe|vibrant paintings]] of [[Palo Duro Canyon]].<ref name="Birth of the abstract">{{cite magazine |author=Michael Abatemarco |date=April 29, 2016 |title=Birth of the abstract: Georgia O'Keeffe in Amarillo |url=http://www.santafenewmexican.com/pasatiempo/art/museum_shows/birth-of-the-abstract-georgia-o-keeffe-in-amarillo/article_84382647-d086-53cd-9ee3-d2d0a14a81f9.html |url-status=live |magazine=Santa Fe New Mexican |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180223080434/http://www.santafenewmexican.com/pasatiempo/art/museum_shows/birth-of-the-abstract-georgia-o-keeffe-in-amarillo/article_84382647-d086-53cd-9ee3-d2d0a14a81f9.html |archive-date=February 23, 2018 |access-date=January 18, 2017}}</ref> She "captured a monumental landscape in this simple configuration, fusing blue and green pigments in almost indistinct tonal gradations that simulate the pulsating effect of light on the horizon of the Texas Panhandle," according to author Sharyn Rohlfsen Udall.<ref name="Junker p. 184" /><ref name="Udall" />

<gallery caption="Palo Duro Canyon" mode="packed" heights="200px" widths="250px">
File:Georgia O'Keeffe, Canyon with Crows.tif|''Canyon with Crows'', 1917, watercolor and graphite on paper, Georgia O'Keeffe Museum

File:Georgia O'Keeffe, No. 20 Special, Milwaukee Art Museum.tif|''No. 20 Special'', oil on board, 1916–1917, Milwaukee Art Museum

File:Georgia O'Keeffe, Palo Duro Canyon, 1916-1917.tif|''Palo Duro Canyon'', 1916–1917, watercolor, West Texas A&M University
</gallery>

== New York (1918–1930s) ==
[[Image:Stieglitz, Georgia O'Keeffe, 1918.jpg|thumb|A Stieglitz portrait of Georgia O'Keeffe (1918)]]

=== Stieglitz circle ===
In 1918, O'Keeffe moved to New York as Stieglitz offered to provide financial support,<ref name="twolives">{{cite book |last1=Rathbone |first1=Belinda |title=Two Lives, Georgia O'Keeffe & Alfred Stieglitz: A Conversation in Paintings and Photographs |last2=Shattuck |first2=Roger |last3=Turner |first3=Elizabeth Hutton |last4=Arrowsmith |first4=Alexandra |last5=West |first5=Thomas |publisher=HarperCollins |year=1992 |isbn=0-06-016895-1 |oclc=974243303}}</ref> a residence, and place for her to paint. They developed a close personal relationship, and later married, while he promoted her work.<ref name="Biography channel" /> Stieglitz also discouraged her use of watercolor, which was associated with amateur women artists.<ref name="twolives" /> According to art historian Charles Eldredge, "the couple enjoyed a prominent position in the ebullient art of New York throughout the 1920s".<ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last=Eldredge |first=Charles C. |title=Georgia O'Keeffe |publisher=Harry N. Abrams |year=1991 |isbn=978-0-8109-3657-7 |series=The library of American art |location=New York |pages=11–19 |chapter=Life and Legend}}</ref>

O'Keeffe came to know the many early American modernists who were part of Stieglitz's circle of artists, including painters [[Charles Demuth]], [[Arthur Dove]], [[Marsden Hartley]], [[John Marin]], and photographers [[Paul Strand]] and [[Edward Steichen]]. Strand's photography, as well as that of Stieglitz, inspired O'Keeffe's work. Stieglitz, whose 291 Gallery closed down in 1917, was now able to spend more time on his own photographic practice, producing a series of photographs of natural forms, cloud studies (a series known as ''[[Equivalents]]''), and portraits of O'Keeffe.<ref name=":3" /> Prior to her marriage to Stieglitz, O'Keeffe's drawings and paintings were frequently abstract, although she began to expand her visual vocabulary from 1924 onward to include more representational imagery "usually taken from nature and often painted in series".<ref>{{Cite book |title=Art in New Mexico, 1900–1945: Paths to Taos and Santa Fe |date=1986 |publisher=National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution |isbn=978-0-89659-599-6 |editor-last=Eldredge |editor-first=Charles C. |location=Washington, D.C. |pages=205 |language=en |editor-last2=Schimmel |editor-first2=Julie |editor-last3=Truettner |editor-first3=William H. }}</ref>

=== Flower paintings ===
{{Further|Flower paintings of Georgia O'Keeffe}}
O'Keeffe began creating simplified images of natural things, such as leaves, flowers, and rocks.<ref name="Kort p. 170">{{cite book|author1=Carol Kort|author2=Liz Sonneborn|title=A to Z of American Women in the Visual Arts|location=New York|publisher=Facts on File|year=2002 |page=170|isbn=0-8160-4397-3}}</ref> Inspired by [[Precisionism]], ''The Green Apple'', completed in 1922, depicts her notion of simple, meaningful life.<ref name="BMA"/> O'Keeffe said that year, "it is only by selection, by elimination, and by emphasis that we get at the real meaning of things."<ref name=BMA>{{cite book|last=[[Birmingham Museum of Art]]|title=Birmingham Museum of Art: guide to the collection|year=2010|publisher=Birmingham Museum of Art |location=Alabama |isbn=978-1-904832-77-5 |page=144 |url=http://www.artsbma.org/pieces/the-green-apple/|access-date=January 15, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151218200346/http://www.artsbma.org/pieces/the-green-apple/|archive-date=December 18, 2015|url-status=live}}</ref> ''[[Blue and Green Music]]'' expresses O'Keeffe's feelings about music through visual art, using bold and subtle colors.<ref name=artic>{{cite web|url=http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/24306|title=Blue and Green Music|website=[[Art Institute of Chicago]]|access-date=January 18, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170112053619/http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/24306|archive-date=January 12, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref>

Also in 1922, 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.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news |last=Rosenfeld |first=Paul |date=October 1922 |title=The Paintings of Georgia O'Keeffe |pages=56, 112, 114 |work=[[Vanity Fair (magazine)|Vanity Fair]]}}</ref> This same article also describes her paintings in a sexual manner.<ref name=":0" /> O'Keeffe, most famous for her depiction of flowers, made about 200 [[Flower paintings of Georgia O'Keeffe|flower paintings]],<ref name="MF">{{cite magazine|url=http://mentalfloss.com/article/63175/15-things-you-should-know-about-georgia-okeeffe|title=15 Things You Should Know About Georgia O'Keeffe|author=Kristy Puchko|date=April 21, 2015|magazine=[[Mental Floss]]|access-date=January 14, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170131184502/http://mentalfloss.com/article/63175/15-things-you-should-know-about-georgia-okeeffe|archive-date=January 31, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref> which by the mid-1920s were large-scale depictions of flowers, as if seen through a magnifying lens, such as ''[[Oriental Poppies]]''<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/dec/31/georgia-okeeffe-war-peace-unmissable-arts-events-2016|title=From Georgia O'Keeffe to War and Peace: Unmissable Arts Events in 2016|newspaper=The Guardian|author=Liese Spencer|date=December 31, 2015|access-date=January 13, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170118070259/https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/dec/31/georgia-okeeffe-war-peace-unmissable-arts-events-2016|archive-date=January 18, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Guardian 10 best">{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/culture/gallery/2012/apr/08/the-10-best-flower-paintings|title=The 10 best flower paintings in pictures|newspaper=The Guardian|author=Laura Cumming|date=April 7, 2012|access-date=January 13, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170118065029/https://www.theguardian.com/culture/gallery/2012/apr/08/the-10-best-flower-paintings|archive-date=January 18, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref> and several ''[[Red Canna (paintings)|Red Canna]]'' paintings.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Barbara Buhler Lynes|author2=Jonathan Weinberg|author3=Georgia O'Keeffe Museum|title=Shared Intelligence: American Painting and the Photograph|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ooMkDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA92|year=2011|publisher=Univ of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-26906-4|page=92}}</ref> She painted her first large-scale flower painting, ''Petunia, No. 2'', in 1924 and it was first exhibited in 1925.<ref name="Biography channel" /> Making magnified depictions of objects created a sense of awe and emotional intensity.<ref name="Kort p. 170" /> In 1924, Stieglitz arranged a show displaying O'Keeffe's works of art alongside his photographs at [[Anderson Galleries]] and helped to organize other exhibitions over the next several years.<ref name="NGA Bio" /><gallery caption="Red Canna (1915–1923)" mode="packed" heights="200px" widths="250px">
File:Georgia O'Keeffe Red Canna 1915 Yale University Art Gallery.tif|''Red Canna'', 1915, [[Yale University Art Gallery]]

File:Georgia O'Keeffe Red Canna 1919 HMA.jpg|''Red Canna'', 1919, oil on board, [[High Museum of Art]], Atlanta

File:Red Canna (1923) by Georgia O'Keeffe.png|''Red Canna'', 1923, oil-painting on canvas, [[Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts]]
</gallery>

=== New York Skyscraper paintings ===
[[File:Radiator Building – Night, New York (1927), Georgia O'Keefe.jpg|thumb|upright=.8|''Radiator Building–Night, New York'', 1927, oil on canvas, The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.]]
After having moved into a 30th floor apartment in the [[New York Marriott East Side|Shelton Hotel]] in 1925,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nyclgbtsites.org/2019/11/26/manhattan-residences-of-georgia-okeeffe-and-patricia-highsmith-published/|title=Manhattan Residences of Georgia O'Keeffe and Patricia Highsmith Published|website=NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project|access-date=December 18, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191218003644/https://www.nyclgbtsites.org/2019/11/26/manhattan-residences-of-georgia-okeeffe-and-patricia-highsmith-published/|archive-date=December 18, 2019|url-status=live}}</ref> O'Keeffe began a series of paintings of the [[New York skyscrapers (O'Keeffe)|New York skyscrapers]] and skyline.<ref name=NBMAA>{{cite web|url=http://www.nbmaa.org/original-site-assets/timeline_highlights/essays/okeefe.html|title=Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986): East River from the Thirtieth Story of the Shelton Hotel, 1928|website=New Britain Museum of American Art|access-date=January 17, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160624005246/http://www.nbmaa.org/original-site-assets/timeline_highlights/essays/okeefe.html|archive-date=June 24, 2016|url-status=dead}}</ref> One of her most notable works, which demonstrates her skill at depicting the buildings in the Precisionist style, is the ''Radiator Building–Night, New York''.<ref name="TAS">{{cite web|url=http://www.theartstory.org/artist-okeeffe-georgia-artworks.htm|title=Important Art by Georgia O'Keeffe: Radiator Building{{snd}}Night, New York|website=The Art Story|access-date=January 17, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170118053413/http://www.theartstory.org/artist-okeeffe-georgia-artworks.htm|archive-date=January 18, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="CBMAA">{{cite web|url=http://stieglitzcollection.crystalbridges.org/object/radiator-building-night-new-york/|title=Radiator Building{{snd}}Night, New York|website=Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art|access-date=January 17, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161018083005/http://stieglitzcollection.crystalbridges.org/object/radiator-building-night-new-york/|archive-date=October 18, 2016|url-status=live}}</ref> Other examples are ''New York Street with Moon'' (1925),<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.museothyssen.org/en/thyssen/ficha_obra/800|title=Georgia O'Keeffe: New York Street with Moon, 1925|website=Museo Thyssen-Bornemisz|access-date=January 17, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161219202433/http://www.museothyssen.org/en/thyssen/ficha_obra/800|archive-date=December 19, 2016|url-status=live}}</ref> ''The Shelton with Sunspots, N.Y.'' (1926),<ref name="AIC">{{cite web|url=http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/104031|title=The Shelton with Sunspots, N.Y., 1926|website=Art Institute of Chicago|access-date=January 17, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170118053705/http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/104031|archive-date=January 18, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref> and ''City Night'' (1926).<ref name="Biography channel" /> She made a cityscape, ''East River from the Thirtieth Story of the Shelton Hotel'' in 1928, a painting of her view of the [[East River]] and smoke-emitting factories in Queens.<ref name=NBMAA/> The next year she made her final New York City skyline and skyscraper paintings and traveled to New Mexico, which became a source of inspiration for her work.<ref name="TAS"/>

The [[Brooklyn Museum]] held a retrospective of her work in 1927.<ref name="Tufts" /> In 1928, Stieglitz announced that six of her [[Zantedeschia aethiopica|calla lily]] paintings sold to an anonymous buyer in France for US$25,000, but there is no evidence that this transaction occurred the way Stieglitz reported.<ref>{{cite book|author=Hunter Drohojowska-Philp|title=Full Bloom: The Art and Life of Georgia O'Keeffe|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GxtrX1k_rf4C&pg=PA282|date=November 17, 2005|publisher=W. W. Norton|isbn=978-0-393-32741-0|page=282}}</ref><ref name="Vivien Green Fryd 2003 164">{{cite book|author=Vivien Green Fryd|title=Art and the Crisis of Marriage: Edward Hopper and Georgia O'Keeffe|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rTR1tRRfQo0C&pg=PA164|year=2003|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-26654-1|page=164}}</ref> As a result of the press attention, O'Keeffe's paintings sold at a higher price from that point onward.<ref>{{cite book|author=Hunter Drohojowska-Philp|title=Full Bloom: The Art and Life of Georgia O'Keeffe|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GxtrX1k_rf4C&pg=PA282|year= 2005|publisher=W. W. Norton|isbn=978-0-393-32741-0|page=282}}</ref><ref name="Vivien Green Fryd 2003 164"/>

== New Mexico (1930s–1986) ==
By 1929, she traveled to [[Santa Fe, New Mexico|Santa Fe]] for the first time,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Drohojowska-Philp |first=Hunter |title=Full Bloom: The Art and Life of Georgia O'Keeffe |publisher=W. W. Norton |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-393-32741-0 |location=New York, NY |pages=294–296 |language=en}}</ref> accompanied by her friend [[Rebecca Salsbury James|Rebecca (Beck) Strand]] and stayed in [[Taos, New Mexico|Taos]] with [[Mabel Dodge Luhan]], who provided the women with studios.<ref name="UNM" /> From her room she had a clear view of the [[Taos Mountain Trail|Taos Mountains]] as well as the ''morada'' (meetinghouse) of the ''Hermanos de la Fraternidad Piadosa de Nuestro Padre Jesús Nazareno'', also known as the [[Penitentes (New Mexico)|Penitentes]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://mavcor.yale.edu/sites/default/files/article_pdf/richmond-moll_jeffrey.pdf|title=Georgia O'Keeffe, Black Cross with Stars and Blue|last=Richmond-Moll|first=Jeffrey|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190812155700/https://mavcor.yale.edu/sites/default/files/article_pdf/richmond-moll_jeffrey.pdf|archive-date=August 12, 2019}}</ref> She subsequently visited New Mexico on a near-annual basis from 1929 onward, often staying there for several months at a time, returning to New York each winter to exhibit her work at [[291 (art gallery)|Stieglitz's gallery]].<ref name=":62">{{Cite web |last=Messinger |first=Lisa |date=October 2004 |title=Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/geok/hd_geok.htm |access-date=2023-05-29 |website=Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History |publisher=The Metropolitan Museum of Art |place=New York |language=en |archive-date=July 12, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230712004013/https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/geok/hd_geok.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> O'Keeffe went on many [[pack trip]]s, exploring the rugged mountains and deserts of the region that summer and later visited the nearby [[D. H. Lawrence Ranch]],<ref name="UNM">{{cite web |url=http://www.unm.edu/~taosconf/Taos/DHlawrence.htm |last=Maurer |first=Rachel |title=The D. H. Lawrence Ranch |publisher=[[University of New Mexico]] |access-date=September 15, 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090625151520/http://www.unm.edu/~taosconf/Taos/DHlawrence.htm |archive-date=June 25, 2009 }}</ref> where she completed her now famous oil painting, ''[[The Lawrence Tree]]'', currently owned by the [[Wadsworth Atheneum|Wadsworth Athenaeum]] in [[Hartford, Connecticut|Hartford]], [[Connecticut]].<ref>{{cite web |title=The Lawrence Tree |website=Wadsworth Athenaeum |location=Hartford, Connecticut |url=http://www.wadsworthshop.org/products/georgie-okeeffe-the-lawrence-tree |access-date=January 18, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170218082825/https://www.wadsworthshop.org/products/georgie-okeeffe-the-lawrence-tree |archive-date=February 18, 2017 |url-status=dead }}</ref> O'Keeffe visited and painted the nearby historical [[San Francisco de Asís Mission Church]] at [[Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico|Ranchos de Taos]]. She made several paintings of the church, as had many artists, and her painting of a fragment of it silhouetted against the sky captured it from a unique perspective.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Eleanor Tufts|author2=National Museum of Women in the Arts|author3=International Exhibitions Foundation|title=American women artists, 1830–1930|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EvxPAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA83|year=1987|publisher=International Exhibitions Foundation for the National Museum of Women in the Arts|isbn=978-0-940979-01-7|page=83|access-date=January 20, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170214215813/https://books.google.com/books?id=EvxPAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA83|archive-date=February 14, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=ncmhf>{{cite web|url=http://www.cowgirl.net/PreviousExhibits.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121014013206/http://www.cowgirl.net/PreviousExhibits.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=October 14, 2012 |title=Rotating O'Keeffe exhibit |publisher=National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame |location=Fort Worth, Texas |year=2010 }}</ref>

In New Mexico, she collected rocks and bones from the desert floor and made them and the distinctive architectural and landscape forms of the area subjects in her work.<ref name="Kort p. 170" /> Known as a loner, O'Keeffe often explored the land she loved in her [[Ford Model A (1927–1931)|Ford Model A]], which she purchased and learned to drive in 1929. She often talked about her fondness for Ghost Ranch and northern New Mexico, as in 1943, when she explained, "Such a beautiful, untouched lonely feeling place, such a fine part of what I call the 'Faraway'. It is a place I have painted before ... even now I must do it again."<ref name=ncmhf/> O'Keeffe did not work from late 1932 until about the mid-1930s<ref name="ncmhf" /> due to nervous breakdowns.<ref name="twolives" /> She was a popular artist, receiving commissions while her works were being exhibited in New York and other places.<ref name="GOM Summer Days" />

=== Skull and desert motifs ===
In 1933 and 1934, O'Keeffe recuperated in [[Bermuda]] and returned to New Mexico in 1934.<ref name=ncmhf/> In August 1934, she moved to Ghost Ranch, north of Abiquiú. In 1940, she moved into a house on the ranch property. The varicolored cliffs surrounding the ranch inspired some of her most famous landscapes.<ref name=ncmhf/> Between 1934 and 1936, she completed a series of landscape paintings inspired by the New Mexico desert, often with prominent depictions of animal skulls, including ''Ram’s Head with Hollyhock'' (1935) and ''Deer's Head with Pedernal'' (1936) as well as ''[[Summer Days (Georgia O'Keeffe)|Summer Days]]'' (1936).<ref name=":12">{{Cite book |last=Norris |first=Kathleen, Wagner M., Anne, Peters, Sarah Whitaker |title=Frames of Reference: Looking at American art, 1900-1950. Works from the Whitney Museum of American Art |publisher=University of California Press |year=1999 |isbn=978-0-520-21888-8 |editor-last=Venn |editor-first=Beth |location=Berkeley, California |pages=203–211 |language=en |chapter=Georgia O'Keeffe. Summer Days. 1936}}</ref> In 1936, she completed what would become one of her best-known paintings, ''Summer Days''. It depicts a desert scene with a deer skull with vibrant wildflowers. Resembling ''Ram's Head with Hollyhock'', it depicted the skull floating above the horizon.<ref name="GOM Summer Days">{{cite web|url=http://www.georgiaokeeffe.net/summer-days.jsp|title=Summer Days|website=Georgia O'Keeffe Museum|access-date=January 18, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170208222027/http://www.georgiaokeeffe.net/summer-days.jsp|archive-date=February 8, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://collection.whitney.org/object/7539|title=Summer Days|website=Whitney Museum of American Art|access-date=January 18, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170202001120/http://collection.whitney.org/object/7539|archive-date=February 2, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref>

<gallery caption="Skulls and desert motif" mode="packed" heights="200px" widths="250px">
File:Georgia O'Keeffe Summer Days 1936.jpg|''[[Summer Days (Georgia O'Keeffe)|Summer Days]]'', 1936, oil on canvas, [[Whitney Museum of American Art]]

File:O'Keeffe Georgia Ram's Head.jpg|''Ram's Head, White Hollyhock-Hills'', 1935, oil on canvas, [[Brooklyn Museum]]
</gallery>

===Hawaii series===
{{main|Hawaii series by Georgia O'Keeffe}}
In 1938, the advertising agency [[N. W. Ayer & Son]] approached O'Keeffe about creating two paintings for the Hawaiian Pineapple Company (now [[Dole Food Company]]) to use in advertising.<ref>{{citation |last=Saville |first=Jennifer |title=Georgia O'Keeffe: Paintings of Hawai'i |location=Honolulu |publisher=Honolulu Academy of Arts |year=1990 |page=13}}</ref><ref>Jennings, Patricia & Maria Ausherman, ''Georgia O'Keeffe's Hawai'i'', [[Koa Books]], [[Kihei, Hawaii]], 2011, p. 3</ref><ref>Papanikolas, Theresa, ''Georgia O'Keeffe and Ansel Adams, The Hawai'I Pictures'', Honolulu Museum of Art, 2013</ref> Other artists who produced paintings of Hawaii for the Hawaiian Pineapple Company's advertising include [[Lloyd Sexton Jr.]], [[Millard Sheets]], [[Yasuo Kuniyoshi]], [[Isamu Noguchi]], and [[Miguel Covarrubias]].<ref>{{citation |last=Severson |first=Don R. |title=Finding Paradise: Island Art in Private Collections |publisher=University of Hawaii Press |year=2002 |page=119}}</ref> The offer came at a critical time in O'Keeffe's life: she was 51, and her career seemed to be stalling (critics were calling her focus on New Mexico limited, and branding her desert images "a kind of mass production").<ref name="O'Keeffe's Hawaii">Tony Perrottet (November 30, 2012), [http://travel.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/travel/georgia-okeeffes-hawaii.html O'Keeffe's Hawaii] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121202050008/http://travel.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/travel/georgia-okeeffes-hawaii.html |date=December 2, 2012 }} ''[[New York Times]]''.</ref>

She arrived in Honolulu on February 8, 1939, aboard the [[SS Lurline (1932)|SS ''Lurline'']] and spent nine weeks in [[Oahu]], [[Maui]], [[Kauai]], and the [[Hawaii (island)|island of Hawaii]]. By far the most productive and vivid period was on Maui, where she was given complete freedom to explore and paint.<ref name="O'Keeffe's Hawaii" /><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2018/spring/feature/georgia-okeeffe-paints-hawaii-0|title=Georgia O'Keeffe Paints Hawaii|website=National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)|access-date=April 9, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200205013955/https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2018/spring/feature/georgia-okeeffe-paints-hawaii-0|archive-date=February 5, 2020|url-status=live}}</ref> She painted flowers, landscapes, and traditional Hawaiian fishhooks. O'Keeffe completed a series of 20 sensual, verdant paintings based on her trip to Hawaii; however, she did not paint the requested pineapple until the Hawaiian Pineapple Company sent a plant to her New York studio.<ref>{{citation |last=Severson |first=Don R. |title=Finding Paradise: Island Art in Private Collections |publisher=University of Hawaii Press |year=2002 |page=128}}</ref>

=== Abiquiú and landscapes ===
[[File:Plaza Blanca cliffs, NM.jpg|thumb|Photo of the Plaza Blanca cliffs and [[badlands]] near [[Abiquiú, New Mexico|Abiquiú]], O'Keeffe's "White Place"]]
In 1945, O'Keeffe bought a second house, an abandoned [[hacienda]] in Abiquiú, which she renovated into a home and studio.<ref name="Danilov p. 17">{{cite book |author=Victor J. Danilov |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kWsrAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA17 |title=Famous Americans: A Directory of Museums, Historic Sites, and Memorials |publisher=Scarecrow Press |year=2013 |isbn=978-0-8108-9186-9 |page=17 |access-date=January 20, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170214220139/https://books.google.com/books?id=kWsrAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA17 |archive-date=February 14, 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref> She moved permanently to New Mexico in 1949, spending time at both Ghost Ranch and the Abiquiú house that she made into her studio.<ref name="Kort p. 170" /><ref name="NGA Bio" />

[[Todd Webb]], a photographer she met in the 1940s, moved to New Mexico in 1961. He often made photographs of her, as did numerous other important American photographers, who consistently presented O'Keeffe as a "loner, a severe figure and self-made person."<ref name="twsOctBE15">{{cite news |last=Kilian |first=Michael |date=August 1, 2002 |title=Santa Fe exhibit paints a different picture of O'Keeffe |work=[[Chicago Tribune]] |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/2002/08/01/santa-fe-exhibit-paints-a-different-picture-of-okeeffe/ |url-status=live |access-date=October 10, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101204040627/http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2002-08-01/features/0208010019_1_georgia-o-keeffe-museum-todd-webb-painted |archive-date=December 4, 2010 |quote=... her place, through the eyes and lens of her close and longtime friend, photographer Todd Webb (1905–2000), who produced a glorious collection of photos of her and her surroundings at her Ghost Ranch and Abiquiú houses between 1955 and 1981.}}</ref> While O'Keeffe was known to have a "prickly personality," Webb's photographs portray her with a kind of "quietness and calm" suggesting a relaxed friendship, and revealing new contours of O'Keeffe's character.<ref name="twsOctBE22">{{cite news |last=Zimmer |first=William |date=December 31, 2000 |title=Art; Exploring the Affinities Among Painting, Music and Dance |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/31/nyregion/art-exploring-the-affinities-among-painting-music-and-dance.html |url-status=live |access-date=October 10, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180621172609/https://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/31/nyregion/art-exploring-the-affinities-among-painting-music-and-dance.html |archive-date=June 21, 2018 |quote=O'Keeffe's prickly personality is legendary, but with Webb she displays the kind of quietness and calm she wanted to embody.}}</ref>

In the 1940s, O'Keeffe made an extensive series of paintings of what is called the "Black Place", about {{convert|150|mi|km}} west of her Ghost Ranch house.<ref name="Carter" /> O'Keeffe said that the Black Place resembled "a mile of elephants with gray hills and white sand at their feet."<ref name="ncmhf" /> She made paintings of the "White Place", a white rock formation located near her Abiquiú house.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/158752|title=The White Place in Sun, 1943|website=Art Institute of Chicago|access-date=January 18, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170201234343/http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/158752|archive-date=February 1, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref> In 1946, she began making the architectural forms of her Abiquiú house—the patio wall and door—subjects in her work.<ref>{{cite book|author=Nancy Hopkins Reily|title=Georgia O'Keeffe, a Private Friendship: Walking the Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch land|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l0zhZ66Ngf8C&pg=PA152|year=2009|publisher=Sunstone Press|isbn=978-0-86534-452-5|pages=152–153|access-date=January 20, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170214223857/https://books.google.com/books?id=l0zhZ66Ngf8C&pg=PA152|archive-date=February 14, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref> It was in this period that O'Keeffe also worked seriously with photography, providing striking counterparts to her patio and door paintings.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Volpe |first1=Lisa |last2=Plotek |first2=Ariel |title=Georgia O'Keefe, Photographer |date=2021 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven, CT |isbn=9780300257809}}</ref> Another distinctive painting was ''Ladder to the Moon'', 1958.<ref>{{cite book|author=Nancy Hopkins Reily|title=Georgia O'Keeffe, a Private Friendship: Walking the Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch land|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l0zhZ66Ngf8C&pg=PA325|year=2009|publisher=Sunstone Press|isbn=978-0-86534-452-5|page=325|access-date=January 20, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170214220512/https://books.google.com/books?id=l0zhZ66Ngf8C&pg=PA325|archive-date=February 14, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref> In the mid-1960s, O'Keeffe produced ''[[Sky Above Clouds]]'', a series of [[cloudscape art|cloudscapes]] inspired by her views from airplane windows.<ref name="Kort p. 170" />{{efn|The series is capitalized as ''[[Sky Above Clouds]]'' but the singular work at The Art Institute of Chicago is stylized as "Sky above Clouds".<ref>{{Cite web |date=1965 |title=Sky above Clouds IV |url=https://www.artic.edu/artworks/100858/sky-above-clouds-iv |access-date=2023-09-01}}</ref>|name=Clouds}} [[Worcester Art Museum]] held a retrospective of her work in 1960<ref name="Tufts" /> and 10 years later, the Whitney Museum of American Art mounted the ''Georgia O'Keeffe Retrospective Exhibition''.<ref name="NGA Bio" />

Beginning in 1946, O'Keeffe worked with the painting conservator Caroline Keck to preserve the visual impression of her paintings. O'Keeffe's stated preference was for her works to be free of dirt, even if removing such soiling caused abrasion to her colors. Keck encouraged O'Keeffe to begin applying acrylic varnishes to her works in order to facilitate their cleaning.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Epley |first=Bradford |date=2018 |title=Accommodating change: twentieth-century American artists and conservators |journal=Burlington Magazine |pages=126–135}}</ref>

During the 1940s, O'Keeffe had two one-woman retrospectives, the first at the [[Art Institute of Chicago]] (1943).<ref name="Kort p. 170" /> Her second was in 1946, when she was the first [[Women artists|woman artist]] to have a retrospective at the [[Museum of Modern Art]] (MoMA) in Manhattan.<ref name="MF" /> The [[Whitney Museum]] began an effort to create the first catalogue of her work in the mid-1940s.<ref name="GOM Summer Days" />

===Late career and death===
{{External image|image1=[http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/100858 ''Sky above Clouds IV''], 1965, oil on canvas, The Art Institute of Chicago.{{efn||name=Clouds}}|image2=[https://honolulumuseum.org/collections/27946/ ''Waterfall, End of Road, Iao Valley''], 1939, oil on canvas, Honolulu Museum of Art.}}

By 1972, O'Keeffe had lost much of her eyesight due to [[macular degeneration]],<ref name="Lynes"/> leaving her with only [[peripheral vision]]. She stopped oil painting without assistance in 1972.<ref>{{cite web |title=Biography |url=https://www.okeeffemuseum.org/about-georgia-okeeffe/ |website=The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum |access-date=22 November 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231115010950/https://www.okeeffemuseum.org/about-georgia-okeeffe/ |archive-date=15 November 2023 |quote=O'Keeffe painted her last unassisted oil painting in 1972 |url-status=live}}</ref> In 1973, O'Keeffe hired John Bruce "Juan" Hamilton as a live-in assistant and then a caretaker. Hamilton was a potter.<ref>{{cite web|date=January 26, 2021|title=Who Was Georgia O'Keeffe's Younger Man, Juan Hamilton?|url=https://www.artdex.com/who-was-georgia-okeeffes-younger-man-juan-hamilton/|access-date=September 16, 2021|website=Artdex|archive-date=September 19, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210919201732/https://www.artdex.com/who-was-georgia-okeeffes-younger-man-juan-hamilton/|url-status=live}}</ref> Hamilton taught O'Keeffe to work with clay, encouraged her to resume painting despite her deteriorating eyesight, and helped her write her autobiography. He worked for her for 13 years.<ref name="Kort p. 170"/> The artist's autobiography, ''Georgia O'Keeffe'', published in 1976 by [[Viking Press]], featured ''Summer Days'' (1936) on the cover. It became a bestseller.<ref name="NGA Bio" /> During the 1970s, she made a series of works in watercolor.<ref>{{cite book |author=Jack Salzman |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-xEuu19hlgMC&pg=PA112 |title=American Studies: An Annotated Bibliography 1984–1988 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1990 |isbn=978-0-521-36559-8 |page=112 |access-date=January 20, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170214220711/https://books.google.com/books?id=-xEuu19hlgMC&pg=PA112 |archive-date=February 14, 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref> She continued working in pencil and charcoal until 1984.<ref name="Lynes">{{cite journal |last1=Lynes |first1=Barbara Buhler |date=Fall 2006 |title=Visiting Georgia O'Keeffe |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/511089 |url-access=subscription |journal=American Art |volume=20 |issue=3 |pages=2–7 |doi=10.1086/511089 |jstor=511089 |s2cid=191326344 |access-date=22 November 2023 |quote=From 1972 to 1976–77, O'Keeffe continued to work in oil, pastel, and watercolor, but only with assistance. She could work unassisted in charcoal and pencil, however, and did so until 1984.}}</ref>

O'Keeffe became increasingly frail in her late nineties. She moved to Santa Fe in 1984, where she died on March 6, 1986, at the age of 98.<ref name="twsJun13c">{{cite news |last=Asbury |first=Edith Evans |date=March 7, 1986 |title=Obituary: Georgia O' Keeffe Dead at 98; Shaper of Modern Art in U.S. |newspaper=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1986/03/07/obituaries/georgia-o-keeffe-dead-at-98-shaper-of-modern-art-in-us.html |url-status=live |access-date=June 13, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090929174943/http://www.nytimes.com/1986/03/07/obituaries/georgia-o-keeffe-dead-at-98-shaper-of-modern-art-in-us.html |archive-date=September 29, 2009}}</ref> Her body was cremated and her ashes were scattered, as she wished, on the land around Ghost Ranch.<ref name="Kort p. 171">{{cite book |author1=Carol Kort |title=A to Z of American Women in the Visual Arts |author2=Liz Sonneborn |publisher=Facts on File |year=2002 |isbn=0-8160-4397-3 |location=New York |page=171}}</ref> Following O'Keeffe's death, her family contested her will because [[codicil (will)|codicils]] added to it in the 1980s had left most of her $65{{Nbsp;}}million estate to Hamilton. The case was ultimately settled out of court in July 1987.<ref name="Kort p. 171" /><ref>{{cite news |date=July 26, 1987 |title=Settlement Is Granted Over O'Keeffe Estate |work=[[The New York Times]] |agency=Associated Press |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1987/07/26/us/settlement-is-granted-over-o-keeffe-estate.html |access-date=November 17, 2022 |archive-date=February 15, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090215065327/http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE2D7133FF935A15754C0A961948260 |url-status=live }}</ref> The case became a famous precedent in [[estate planning]].<ref>{{cite news |last1=Dingus |first1=Anne |date=1 July 1997 |title=Georgia O'Keeffe |work=Texas Monthly |url=https://www.texasmonthly.com/arts-entertainment/georgia-okeeffe/ |access-date=November 17, 2022 |archive-date=November 17, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221117020317/https://www.texasmonthly.com/arts-entertainment/georgia-okeeffe/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |author=Vaughn W. Henry |date=May 10, 2004 |title=Establishing a Value is Important! |url=http://www.pgdc.com/usa/item/?itemID=210008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070213201131/http://www.pgdc.com/usa/item/?itemID=210008 |archive-date=February 13, 2007 |access-date=January 3, 2007 |publisher=Planned Giving Design Center, LLC}}</ref>

== Reception ==
=== Awards and honors ===

{{external media | width = 210px | float = right
 | headerimage=[[File:Georgia O'Keeffe.jpg|210px]]
 | video1 =[http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/310650-1 ''Life and Artwork of Georgia O'Keeffe''], the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum (11:00), [[C-SPAN]]<ref name="cspan">{{cite web | title =Life and Artwork of Georgia O'Keeffe | publisher =[[C-SPAN]] | date =January 9, 2013 | url =http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/310650-1 | access-date =March 14, 2013 | archive-date =June 6, 2014 | archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20140606231424/http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/310650-1 | url-status =live }}</ref> }}

In 1938, O'Keeffe received an honorary degree of "Doctor of Fine Arts" from the [[College of William & Mary]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://scdbwiki.swem.wm.edu/wiki/index.php/Georgia_O%27Keeffe|title=Special Collections Research Center Knowledgebase|access-date=October 29, 2020|archive-date=August 14, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210814162347/https://scdbwiki.swem.wm.edu/wiki/index.php/Georgia_O%27Keeffe|url-status=live}}</ref> Later, O'Keeffe was elected to the [[American Academy of Arts and Letters]]<ref name="Tufts" /> and in 1966 was elected a Fellow of the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]].<ref name=AAAS>{{cite web|title=Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter O|url=http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterO.pdf|publisher=American Academy of Arts and Sciences|access-date=April 14, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110613085135/https://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterO.pdf|archive-date=June 13, 2011|url-status=live}}</ref> Among her awards and honors, O'Keeffe received the M. Carey Thomas Award at [[Bryn Mawr College]] in 1971 and two years later received an honorary degree from [[Harvard University]].<ref name="Tufts" />

In 1977, [[President of the United States|President]] [[Gerald Ford]] presented O'Keeffe with the [[Presidential Medal of Freedom]], the highest honor awarded to American civilians.<ref>{{cite book | last1 = The National First Ladies Library | title = Heroes of the Presidential Medal of Freedom | year=2010 | location = Canton Ohio | pages = 3 | url = http://www.firstladies.org/documents/Medal_freedom.pdf | access-date = February 11, 2011 | quote = Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986)...Presidential Medal of Freedom received January 10, 1977 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110214141417/http://www.firstladies.org/documents/Medal_freedom.pdf | archive-date = February 14, 2011 | url-status = live }}</ref> In 1985, she was awarded the [[National Medal of Arts]] by President [[Ronald Reagan]].<ref name="NGA Bio" /> In 1993, she was inducted into the [[National Women's Hall of Fame]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fok10|title=O'Keeffe, Georgia Otto|author=John F. Matthews|website=Handbook of Texas Online|access-date=January 17, 2016|date=June 15, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151231170439/https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fok10|archive-date=December 31, 2015|url-status=live}}</ref>

=== Art criticism and scholarship ===
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.<ref>{{cite thesis |id={{ProQuest|2516220633}} |last1=Kessler |first1=Renata Renee |year=2021 |title=The Flowers and Bones of Georgia O'Keeffe: A Research-Based Dissertation Culminating in a Full-Length Play: Days with Juan }}</ref> Feminist art historian [[Linda Nochlin]], the author of the influential 1971 essay titled "[[Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?]]", also interpreted ''[[Black Iris (painting)|Black Iris III]]'' (1926) as a morphological metaphor for a vulva.<ref name="nochlin">{{Cite book |last1=Nochlin |first1=Linda |title=Women artists: the Linda Nochlin reader |last2=Reilly |first2=Maura |date=2015 |isbn=978-0-500-23929-2 |pages=76–85 |chapter=Some Women Realists: Part 1|publisher=National Geographic Books }}</ref><ref name="tessler">{{Cite book |last=Tessler |first=Nira |title=Flowers and Towers: Politics of Identity in the Art of the American 'New Woman' |publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing |year=2015 |isbn=978-1-4438-8623-9}}</ref>

Art dealer [[Samuel M. Kootz|Samuel Kootz]] was one of O'Keeffe's critics who, although considering her to be "the only prominent woman artist" (in the words of Marilyn Hall Mitchell), considered sexual expression in her work (and other artists' work) artistically problematic.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Mitchell |first=Marilyn Hall |date=1978 |title=Sexist Art Criticism: Georgia O'Keeffe: A Case Study |journal=Signs |volume=3 |issue=3 |pages=681–687 |doi=10.1086/493510 |jstor=3173179 |s2cid=144414057 }}</ref> Kootz stated that "assertion of sex can only impede the talents of an artist, for it is an act of defiance, of grievance, in which the consciousness of these qualities retards the natural assertions of the painter".<ref name=":1" />

O'Keeffe stood her ground against sexual interpretations of her work, and for fifty years maintained that there was no connection between vulvas and her artwork.<ref name=":1" /> Firing back against some of the criticism, O'Keeffe stated, "When people read erotic symbols into my paintings, they're really talking about their own affairs."<ref>{{Cite web |title=Sex, Stieglitz and Georgia O'Keeffe {{!}} art {{!}} Agenda {{!}} Phaidon |url=https://www.phaidon.com/agenda/art/articles/2016/july/05/sex-stieglitz-and-georgia-o-keeffe/ |access-date=2022-03-31 |website=www.phaidon.com |archive-date=March 15, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220315001543/https://www.phaidon.com/agenda/art/articles/2016/july/05/sex-stieglitz-and-georgia-o-keeffe/ |url-status=live }}</ref> She attributed other artists' attacks on her work to [[psychological projection]]. O'Keeffe was also seen as a [[revolutionary feminist]]; however, the artist rejected these notions, stating that "femaleness is irrelevant" and that "it has nothing to do with art making or accomplishment."<ref>{{cite journal |id={{ProQuest|2565692463}} |last1=Gates |first1=Alison A. |title=Georgia O'Keeffe: Inevitable Icon |journal=Feminist Collections |volume=42 |issue=1/2 |year=2021 |pages=12–13 }}</ref>

==Personal life==
[[File:Alfred Stieglitz - Georgia O'Keeffe - Google Art Project, sepia.jpg|upright|thumb|left|[[Alfred Stieglitz]], ''Georgia O'Keeffe'', platinum print, 1920]]

In June 1918, O'Keeffe accepted Stieglitz's invitation to move to New York from Texas after he promised to provide her a quiet studio where she could paint. Within a month he took the first of many nude photographs of her at his family's apartment while his wife was away. His wife returned home while their session was still in progress and gave him an ultimatum. Stieglitz left immediately and moved into an apartment in the city with O'Keeffe. In mid-August when they visited Oaklawn, the Stieglitz family summer estate in [[Lake George (village), New York|Lake George]] in upstate New York, they behaved like two teenagers in love.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Whelan |first=Richard |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/31516122 |title=Alfred Stieglitz : a biography |date=1995 |publisher=Little, Brown |isbn=0-316-93404-6 |edition=1st |location=Boston |oclc=31516122}}</ref> Also around this time, O'Keeffe became sick during the [[1918 flu pandemic]].<ref name="roxana" />

In February 1921, Stieglitz's photographs of O'Keeffe were included in a retrospective exhibition at the Anderson Galleries. Stieglitz started photographing O'Keeffe when she visited him in [[New York City]] to see her 1917 exhibition, and continued taking photographs, many of which were in the nude. It created a public sensation. When he retired from photography in 1937, he had made more than 350 portraits and more than 200 nude photos of her.<ref name="Kort p. 170" /><ref name="Brennan">{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/paintinggenderco00bren|url-access=registration|title=Painting Gender, Constructing Theory: The Alfred Stieglitz Circle and American Formalist Aesthetics|first=Marcia|last=Brennan|publisher=MIT Press|year=2002|isbn=0-262-52336-1}}</ref> In 1978, she wrote about how distant from them she had become, "When I look over the photographs Stieglitz took of me—some of them more than sixty years ago—I wonder who that person is. It is as if in my one life I have lived many lives."<ref>{{cite book|last=Lynes|first=Barbara|title=O'Keeffe, Stieglitz and the Critics, 1916–1929|year=1989|publisher=UMI Research Press|location=Ann Arbor, Michigan|isbn=0-8357-1930-8|pages=[https://archive.org/details/okeeffestieglitz0000lyne/page/55 55–56]|url=https://archive.org/details/okeeffestieglitz0000lyne/page/55}}</ref>

[[File:OKeeffe-My_Shanty.jpg|thumb|''[[My Shanty, Lake George]]'', 1922, oil on canvas, [[The Phillips Collection]], [[Washington, D.C.]]]]

Owing to the legal delays caused by Stieglitz's first wife and her family, it would take six years before he obtained a divorce. O'Keeffe and Stieglitz were married on December 11, 1924.<ref name="Marriage date" /><ref name="NGA Bio" /> For the rest of their lives together, their relationship was, "a collusion....a system of deals and trade-offs, tacitly agreed to and carried out, for the most part, without the exchange of a word. Preferring avoidance to confrontation on most issues, O'Keeffe was the principal agent of collusion in their union," according to biographer [[Benita Eisler]].<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-06-02-bk-207-story.html|title=The Young and the Restless : O'Keeffe & Stieglitz: An American Romance, By Benita Eisler (Doubleday: 560 pp.)|last=McKenna|first=Kristine|date=June 2, 1991|work=Los Angeles Times|access-date=April 15, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170416221127/http://articles.latimes.com/1991-06-02/books/bk-207_1_benita-eisler|archive-date=April 16, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref> They lived primarily in New York City, but spent their summers at his father's family estate, Oaklawn, in Lake George in upstate New York.<ref name="NGA Bio" />

[[File:Pedernal Mountain, NM.jpg|thumb|[[Cerro Pedernal]], viewed from [[Ghost Ranch]]. This was a favorite subject for O'Keeffe, who once said, "It's my private mountain. It belongs to me. God told me if I painted it enough, I could have it"<ref>Abrams, Dennis. O'Keeffe, Georgia. 2009. ''Georgia O'Keeffe''. Infobase Publishing, p. 97</ref><ref>A similar remark is registered in [http://www.drbilllong.com/CurrentEventsXI/OKeeffeII.html "Her Story and Her Work"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111029101536/http://www.drbilllong.com/CurrentEventsXI/OKeeffeII.html |date=October 29, 2011 }} by Bill Long, 6/29/07.: "I painted it often enough thinking that, if I did so, God would give it to me."</ref>]]
O'Keeffe and Stieglitz had an open relationship, which could be painful for O'Keeffe when Stieglitz had affairs with women.<ref name="Palmer" />{{efn|She also said that she was happy being "me" rather than worrying about affairs that Stieglitz might be having.{{sfn|Burke|2020|p=200}}}} In 1928, Stieglitz began a long-term affair with [[Dorothy Norman]], who was also married, and O'Keeffe lost a project to create a [[mural]] for [[Radio City Music Hall]]. She was hospitalized for [[Depression (mood)|depression]].<ref name="Kort p. 170" /> At the suggestion of [[Maria Chabot]] and [[Mabel Dodge Luhan]], O'Keeffe began to spend the summers painting in New Mexico in 1929.<ref name="NGA Bio">{{cite web|url=http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/Collection/artist-info.2311.html|title=O'Keeffe, Georgia: Biography|website=National Gallery of Art|author=Robert Torchia|date=September 29, 2016|access-date=January 14, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170118035722/http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/Collection/artist-info.2311.html|archive-date=January 18, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref> She traveled by train with her friend the painter Rebecca Strand, [[Paul Strand]]'s wife, to Taos, where they lived with their [[Patronage|patron]] who provided them with [[studio]]s.<ref name="UNM" /> In 1933, O'Keeffe was hospitalized for two months after suffering a [[nervous breakdown]], largely due to Stieglitz's affair with Dorothy Norman.<ref>{{cite book|author=Hunter Drohojowska-Philp|title=Full Bloom: The Art and Life of Georgia O'Keeffe|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GxtrX1k_rf4C&pg=PA4|year=2005|publisher=W. W. Norton|isbn=978-0-393-32741-0|pages=5–6|access-date=January 20, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170214220258/https://books.google.com/books?id=GxtrX1k_rf4C&pg=PA4|archive-date=February 14, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref> She did not paint again until January 1934.<ref name=ncmhf/>

O'Keeffe continued to visit New Mexico, without her husband, and created a new body of works based upon the desert.<ref name="100 women">{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/100mostimportant0000mark/page/140/mode/2up?q=%22O%27Keeffe%22 |title=100 Most Important Women of the 20th century |page=140 |publisher=Ladies' Home Journal Books | year=1998 |isbn=9780696208232 }}</ref>{{efn|In the 1920s and 1930s, Santa Fe and Taos were havens for men and women who wanted to live unburdened by societal norms about sexuality.<ref name="Subtext">{{cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-santa-fe-new-mexican-georgia-okeeff/127553339/ |title=Subtexts: Georgia O'Keeffe |newspaper=The Santa Fe New Mexican |date=March 11, 2016 |page=Z016 |access-date=July 3, 2023 |archive-date=July 3, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230703221526/https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-santa-fe-new-mexican-georgia-okeeff/127553339/ |url-status=live }}</ref>{{sfn|Eisler|1992|p=458}} During that time, "artists flocked to New Mexico inspired by its vast natural beauty and the indigenous cultures that were so different from their own."<ref>{{cite web | url=https://online.nmartmuseum.org/nmhistory/growing-new-mexico/tourism/history-tourism.html#:~:text=Artists%20flocked%20to%20New%20Mexico,tended%20to%20romanticize%20native%20life. | title=New Mexico Art Tells New Mexico History | publisher=New Mexico Museum of Art | access-date=4 July 2023 | archive-date=June 5, 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230605015642/https://online.nmartmuseum.org/nmhistory/growing-new-mexico/tourism/history-tourism.html#:~:text=Artists%20flocked%20to%20New%20Mexico,tended%20to%20romanticize%20native%20life. | url-status=live }}</ref> Lesbian women in the fields of photography, archaeology, and anthropology were drawn to the area professionally and personally.{{sfn|Eisler|1992|p=458}} O'Keeffe knew lesbian and bisexual women<ref name="Garber">{{cite book |first1=Marjorie |last1=Garber |title=Bisexuality and the Eroticism of Everyday Life'' |date=May 13, 2013 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gl4MtvWKnUcC&pg=PA113 |pages=113–115, 288 |isbn=9781136612831 |access-date=July 9, 2023 |archive-date=August 31, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230831050606/https://books.google.com/books?id=gl4MtvWKnUcC&pg=PA113 |url-status=live }}</ref> According to ''El Palacio'', she tended to avoid Santa Fe's lesbian women.<ref name="El Palacio">{{cite magazine |url=https://www.elpalacio.org/2017/06/the-view-from-out-there/ |title=The View from Out There Cady Wells: Ruminations at the New Mexico Museum of Art |magazine=El Palacio |date=June 2017 |access-date=July 3, 2023}}</ref> She was friends with bisexual and gay men, like [[Cady Wells]], who was a lifelong friend.<ref name="El Palacio" />}} O'Keeffe broke free of "strict gender roles" and adopted "gender neutral" clothing,<ref name="CAM">{{cite web |url=https://cincinnatiartmuseum.org/about/blog/pride-blog-6182019/ |title=Pride: LGBTQ+ Artists and CAM |first1=Rachel |last1=Ellison |date=June 18, 2019 |publisher=Cincinnati Art Museum |access-date=July 3, 2023 |archive-date=July 3, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230703181338/https://cincinnatiartmuseum.org/about/blog/pride-blog-6182019/ |url-status=live }}</ref> as did other professional women in Santa Fe and Taos who experienced "psychological space and sexual freedom" there.{{sfn|Eisler|1992|p=458}}<ref name="Palmer">{{cite web |url=https://journeys.dartmouth.edu/palmer_span7_wi17/from-feminists-to-public-figures-frida-kahlo-georgia-okeeffe-and-suzanne-lacy/ |title=From Feminists to Public Figures: Frida Kahlo, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Suzanne Lacy |first1=Natalee G. |last1=Palmer |work=Natalee Palmer's Spanish 07 Portfolio |access-date=July 3, 2023 |archive-date=July 3, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230703185635/https://journeys.dartmouth.edu/palmer_span7_wi17/from-feminists-to-public-figures-frida-kahlo-georgia-okeeffe-and-suzanne-lacy/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Garber" />{{sfn|Eisler|1992|pp=398, 505}}{{efn|O'Keeffe preferred to focus on her artistic skills than her sexual orientation.<ref name="Subtext" />{{sfn|Burke|2020|p=320}} She did not claim to be bisexual, and there are differing opinions about her sexuality.<ref name="CAM" /> [[Benita Eisler]], author of ''O'Keeffe & Stieglitz: An American Romance'', was the first biographer to state that O'Keeffe was a bisexual. She came to that conclusion from reading letters between Beck and Paul Strand.<ref>{{cite news |title=O'Keeffe was no saint, tell-all book reveals |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1991-07-28-9103230797-story.html |first1=Abigail |last1=Foerstner |date=July 28, 1991 |access-date=July 3, 2023 |archive-date=July 2, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230702145817/https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1991-07-28-9103230797-story.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Colin B. Bailey, Director of Museums, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco stated that people who wrote that O'Keeffe was bisexual brought the topic into "murky historical waters".<ref>{{cite news |url=https://sfbaytimes.com/modern-nature-georgia-okeeffe-and-lake-george/ |title=Modern Nature: Georgia O'Keeffe and Lake George |newspaper=San Francisco Bay Times |access-date=July 3, 2023 |archive-date=July 3, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230703183101/https://sfbaytimes.com/modern-nature-georgia-okeeffe-and-lake-george/ |url-status=live }}</ref>}}

Shortly after O'Keeffe arrived for the summer in New Mexico in 1946, Stieglitz suffered a [[cerebral thrombosis]] (stroke). She immediately flew to New York to be with him. He died on July 13, 1946. She buried his ashes at Lake George.<ref>{{cite book |author1=Dennis Abrams |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mqOrh-fZRhMC&pg=PA100 |title=Georgia O'Keeffe |author2=Georgia O'Keeffe |publisher=Infobase Publishing |year=2009 |isbn=978-1-4381-2827-6 |page=100 |access-date=January 20, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170214220336/https://books.google.com/books?id=mqOrh-fZRhMC&pg=PA100 |archive-date=February 14, 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref> She spent the next three years mostly in New York settling his estate.<ref name="Kort p. 170" />

She had a close relationship with [[Rebecca Salsbury James|Beck Strand]]. They enjoyed spending time together, traveling,{{sfn|Burke|2020|p=202}} and living with "glee".{{sfn|Burke|2020|pp=202, 206}} Strand said that she was most herself when with O'Keeffe. In ''Foursome''—a book about O'Keeffe, Stieglitz, and Beck and Paul Strand—[[Carolyn Burke]] argues against the notion that the women were sexually or romantically involved, finding such a reading of their correspondence incongruous with their "passionate ties to their husbands" and "strong heterosexual attractions".{{sfn|Burke|2020|p=202}}

[[Frida Kahlo]] met O'Keeffe in December 1931 in New York City at the opening of [[Diego Rivera]]'s solo exhibition at the MOMA, after which a friendship developed.<ref name=":2">{{cite web |last=Chernick |first=Karen |title=Kahlo and O'Keeffe: the formative friendship between two artistic giants |date=April 7, 2020 |url=https://www.cnn.com/style/article/frida-kahlo-georgia-okeeffe-artsy/index.html |access-date=October 22, 2022 |publisher=CNN |archive-date=October 22, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221022215616/https://www.cnn.com/style/article/frida-kahlo-georgia-okeeffe-artsy/index.html |url-status=live }}</ref>{{efn|In 1932, [[Frida Kahlo]] and her husband moved from NYC to Detroit. Here, Kahlo painted the famous Self Portrait on the Borderline Between Mexico and the United States. Many historians have noted the jack-in-the-pulpit flowers which lie on the Mexico side of the painting. These flowers, which are not native to Mexico, were the feature of a series of paintings by O'Keeffe just two years prior in which she painted the flowers at different periods of growth: one fully closed, one open, etc. This same series of growth is featured in Kahlo's painting.<ref name=":2" />}} They remained friends, staying in touch when O'Keeffe recuperated from a nervous breakdown in a hospital and then in Bermuda.<ref name=":2" /><ref>{{cite web |last=Kettler |first=Sara |title=Behind Frida Kahlo's Real and Rumored Affairs With Men and Women |url=https://www.biography.com/news/frida-kahlo-real-rumored-affairs-men-women |access-date=2022-10-22 |website=Biography |date=July 14, 2020 |language=en-US |archive-date=October 22, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221022215628/https://www.biography.com/news/frida-kahlo-real-rumored-affairs-men-women |url-status=live }}</ref> Both women visited each other's homes on a couple of occasions in the 1950s.<ref name=":2" />

Among guests to visit her at the ranch over the years were [[Charles Lindbergh|Charles and Anne Lindbergh]], singer-songwriter [[Joni Mitchell]], poet [[Allen Ginsberg]], and photographer [[Ansel Adams]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Jonathan Stewart|title=Walking Away From The Land: Change At The Crest Of A Continent|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=80qmBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT319|year=2014|publisher=Xlibris Corporation|isbn=978-1-4931-8090-5|page=319|access-date=January 20, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170214220728/https://books.google.com/books?id=80qmBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT319|archive-date=February 14, 2017|url-status=live}}{{self-published source|date=December 2017}}</ref> She traveled and camped at "Black Place" often with her friend, Maria Chabot, and later with [[Eliot Porter]].<ref name=ncmhf/><ref name="Carter">[http://www.cartermuseum.org/collections/porter/collection.php?asn=P1990-54-671&mcat=2&scat=8 Porter's photograph, ''Eroded Clay and Rock Flakes, Black Place, New Mexico, July 20, 1953''], on cartermuseum.org, in the [[Amon Carter Museum]] Eliot Porter Collection {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160819040354/http://www.cartermuseum.org/collections/porter/collection.php?asn=P1990-54-671&mcat=2&scat=8 |date=August 19, 2016}} Retrieved June 16, 2010</ref>

== Legacy ==
Marquette Middle School in [[Madison, Wisconsin]] was renamed as Georgia O'Keeffe Middle School.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-08-08 |title=About us – Georgia O'Keeffe Middle School |url=https://okeeffe.madison.k12.wi.us/about-us |access-date=2024-02-28 |website=okeeffe.madison.k12.wi.us |language=en-US}}</ref>

In 2020, Tymberwood Academy (in Gravesend, Kent, England), pupils chose new class names. One of the winning names for a Year 3 class was Georgia O'Keeffe.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-05-24 |title=Reception (Lily Rice and Georgia O'Keeffe) |url=https://www.tymberwoodacademy.co.uk/reception-lily-rice-and-georgia-okeeffe-1/ |access-date=2024-05-24 |website=www.tymberwoodacademy.co.uk/ |language=en-US}}</ref>

=== Georgia O'Keeffe Museum ===
{{Main|Georgia O'Keeffe Museum}}

[[File:Painting materials as displayed at the O'Keeffe Museum.jpg|thumb|Painting materials as displayed at the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico]]

O'Keeffe was a legend beginning in the 1920s, known as much for her independent spirit and female role model as for her dramatic and innovative works of art.<ref name="Kort p. 171" /> Nancy and Jules Heller said, "The most remarkable thing about O'Keeffe was the audacity and uniqueness of her early work." At that time, even in Europe, there were few artists exploring abstraction. Even though her works may show elements of different modernist movements, such as Surrealism and Precisionism, her work is uniquely her own style.<ref name="Heller p. 416">{{cite book|author1=Jules Heller|author2=Nancy Heller|title=North American Women Artists of the Twentieth Century: A Biographical Dictionary|url=https://archive.org/details/northamericanwom00hellrich|url-access=registration|year=1995|publisher=Garland|isbn=978-0-8240-6049-7|page=[https://archive.org/details/northamericanwom00hellrich/page/416 416]|access-date=March 6, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191216060406/https://archive.org/details/northamericanwom00hellrich|archive-date=December 16, 2019|url-status=live}}</ref>

A substantial part of her estate's assets were transferred to the Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation, a nonprofit. The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum opened in Santa Fe in 1997.<ref name="Kort p. 171" /> The assets included a large body of her work, photographs, archival materials, and her Abiquiú house, library, and property. The [[Georgia O'Keeffe Home and Studio]] in Abiquiú was designated a [[National Historic Landmark]] in 1998, and is now owned by the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum.<ref name="Danilov p. 17" /> A fossilized species of [[archosaur]] was named ''[[Effigia okeeffeae]]'' ("O'Keeffe's Ghost") in January 2006, "in honor of Georgia O'Keeffe for her numerous paintings of the badlands at Ghost Ranch and her interest in the ''[[Coelophysis]]'' Quarry when it was discovered".<ref>{{cite journal |author=Sterling J Nesbitt1, and Mark A Norell |date=May 7, 2006 |title=Extreme convergence in the body plans of an early suchian (Archosauria) and ornithomimid dinosaurs (Theropoda) |journal=Proc Biol Sci |publisher=The Royal Society |volume=273 |issue=1590 |pages=1045–1048 |doi=10.1098/rspb.2005.3426 |pmc=1560254 |pmid=16600879}}</ref> In November 2016, the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum recognized the importance of her time in Charlottesville by dedicating an exhibition, using watercolors that she had created over three summers. It was entitled, [[O'Keeffe at the University of Virginia, 1912–1914]].<ref name="UVA" />

=== Popular culture ===
In 1991, [[PBS]] aired the ''[[American Playhouse]]'' production ''A Marriage: Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz'', starring [[Jane Alexander]] as O'Keeffe and [[Christopher Plummer]] as Alfred Stieglitz.<ref>{{cite news |author=Susan King |date=July 14, 1991 |title=Focus : Georgia on Her Mind : Jane Alexander's Fascination With Artist O'Keeffe Leads to PBS' 'Playhouse' |website=Los Angeles Times |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-07-14-tv-3212-story.html |url-status=live |access-date=January 18, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170201235248/http://articles.latimes.com/1991-07-14/news/tv-3212_1_jane-alexander |archive-date=February 1, 2017}}</ref> In 1996, the [[U.S. Postal Service]] issued a 32-cent stamp honoring O'Keeffe.<ref>{{cite web |title=Stamp Series |url=http://beyondtheperf.com/stamp-series |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130810160707/http://beyondtheperf.com/stamp-series |archive-date=August 10, 2013 |access-date=September 2, 2013 |publisher=United States Postal Service}}</ref> In 2013, on the 100th anniversary of the [[Armory Show]], the USPS issued a stamp featuring O'Keeffe's ''Black Mesa Landscape, New Mexico/Out Back of Marie's II, 1930'' as part of their Modern Art in America series.<ref>{{cite web |title=Modern Art in America 1913–1931, Forever |url=http://uspsstamps.com/stamps/modern-art-america-1913%E2%80%931931 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150316045046/http://uspsstamps.com/stamps/modern-art-america-1913%E2%80%931931 |archive-date=March 16, 2015 |access-date=March 8, 2015 |publisher=USPS}}</ref> [[Lifetime (TV network)|Lifetime Television]] produced [[Georgia O'Keeffe (2009 film)|a biopic of Georgia O'Keeffe]] starring [[Joan Allen]] as O'Keeffe, [[Jeremy Irons]] as Alfred Stieglitz, [[Henry Simmons]] as [[Jean Toomer]], [[Ed Begley Jr.]] as Stieglitz's brother Lee, and [[Tyne Daly]] as Mabel Dodge Luhan. It premiered on September 19, 2009.<ref>{{cite web |title=Georgia O'Keeffe |url=http://www.mylifetime.com/on-tv/movies/georgia-okeeffe |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090830172336/http://www.mylifetime.com/on-tv/movies/georgia-okeeffe |archive-date=August 30, 2009 |publisher=Lifetime Television's}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Vincent Terrace |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GoKJZanh6TsC&pg=PA59 |title=The Year in Television, 2009: A Catalog of New and Continuing Series, Miniseries, Specials and TV Movies |publisher=McFarland |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-7864-5644-4 |page=59 |access-date=January 20, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170214220251/https://books.google.com/books?id=GoKJZanh6TsC&pg=PA59 |archive-date=February 14, 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref>

On November 20, 2014, O'Keeffe's ''[[Jimson Weed (painting)|Jimson Weed/White Flower No 1]]'' (1932) sold for $44,405,000 in 2014 at auction to [[Walmart]] heiress [[Alice Walton]], more than three times the previous world auction record for any female artist.<ref>{{cite web |date=November 20, 2014 |title=Auction Results: American Art |url=http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/2014/american-art-n09229.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160911164728/http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/2014/american-art-n09229.html |archive-date=September 11, 2016 |access-date=January 19, 2017 |website=Sotheby's}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1, 1932 by Georgia O'Keeffe |url=https://www.georgiaokeeffe.net/jimson-weed-white-flower.jsp |access-date=June 10, 2020 |website=www.georgiaokeeffe.net |archive-date=July 22, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200722014816/https://www.georgiaokeeffe.net/jimson-weed-white-flower.jsp |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== Women's suffrage and feminism ===
In ''Equal Under the Sky: Georgia O'Keeffe and Twentieth Century Feminism'', Linda M. Grasso documents O'Keeffe's life-long involvement in feminism and women's issues. O'Keeffe came of age as a woman and an artist in the 1910s, at the height of the [[Women's suffrage in the United States|women's suffrage movement]] and the intense artistic ferment of [[modernism]]. Grasso notes that "Modernists championed rupture, innovation, and daring in art forms, styles, and perspectives," and that O'Keeffe "first created herself as an artist when feminism and modernism were interlinked".{{sfn|Grasso|2017|p=3}} As early as 1915, O'Keeffe was reading books and articles on women's suffrage and cultural politics with enthusiasm, such as [[Floyd Dell]]'s ''Women as World Builders: Studies in Modern Feminism''.{{sfn|Grasso|2017|p=23}} There was much talk in this era about the "[[New Woman]]," liberated from Victorian strictures and mores and pursuing her own life and education and self-expression freely. O'Keeffe was in active dialogue with her suffragist friend Anita Pollitzer, with whom she exchanged letters on the subject. Pollitzer, in fact, was the first person to introduce Alfred Stieglitz to O'Keeffe's art work.{{sfn|Grasso|2017|p=52}} She was also reading [[Charlotte Perkins Gilman]] and [[Olive Schreiner]], among others, alongside the radical magazine ''[[The Masses]]'', and lecturing on modernist dancer [[Isadora Duncan]]. In a debate with [[Michael Gold]] in 1930, O'Keeffe said she was "interested in the oppression of women of all classes".{{sfn|Grasso|2017|p=4}} Gross writes: "She sustained an affiliation with the National Woman's Party and made public statements about gender discrimination and women's rights in interviews, speeches, letters, and articles into the 1970s."{{sfn|Grasso|2017|p=104}}

She received unprecedented acceptance as a woman artist from the fine art world due to her powerful graphic images and within a decade of moving to New York City, she was the highest-paid American woman artist.<ref>{{cite book|author=Hunter Drohojowska-Philp|title=Full Bloom: The Art and Life of Georgia O'Keeffe|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GxtrX1k_rf4C&pg=PA4|year=2005|publisher=W.W. Norton|isbn=978-0-393-32741-0|pages=4–5|access-date=January 20, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170214220258/https://books.google.com/books?id=GxtrX1k_rf4C&pg=PA4|archive-date=February 14, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref> She was known for a distinctive style in all aspects of her life.<ref>{{cite magazine |title=Jane Jacobs, Georgia O'Keeffe, and the Power of the Marimekko Dress |url=http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/jane-jacobs-georgia-okeeffe-and-the-power-of-the-marimekko-dress |magazine=The New Yorker |access-date=July 25, 2018 |author=Alexandra Lange |date=June 23, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180629131049/https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/jane-jacobs-georgia-okeeffe-and-the-power-of-the-marimekko-dress |archive-date=June 29, 2018 |url-status=live }}</ref>

[[Mary Beth Edelson]]'s [[Some Living American Women Artists (collage)|''Some Living American Women Artists / Last Supper'']] (1972) appropriated [[Leonardo da Vinci]]'s ''The Last Supper'', with the heads of notable women artists collaged over the heads of Christ and his apostles. [[John the Apostle]]'s head was replaced with [[Nancy Graves]], and Christ's with Georgia O'Keeffe. This image, addressing the role of religious and art historical iconography in the subordination of women, became "one of the most iconic images of the [[feminist art movement]]."<ref name="Frost Art Museum">{{cite web|url=http://drawingproject.frostartmuseum.org/mary-beth-edelson/|title=Mary Beth Edelson|work=The Frost Art Museum Drawing Project|access-date=January 11, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140111201036/http://drawingproject.frostartmuseum.org/mary-beth-edelson/|archive-date=January 11, 2014|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Clara - Edelson">{{cite web|url=http://clara.nmwa.org/index.php?g=entity_detail&entity_id=1321|title=Mary Beth Adelson|work=Database of Women Artists (Clara)|publisher=National Museum of Women in the Arts|location=Washington, D.C.|access-date=January 10, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140110213429/http://clara.nmwa.org/index.php?g=entity_detail&entity_id=1321|archive-date=January 10, 2014|url-status=dead}}</ref> [[Judy Chicago]] gave O'Keeffe a prominent place in her ''[[The Dinner Party]]'' (1979) in recognition of what many prominent feminist artists considered groundbreaking introduction of sensual and feminist imagery in her works of art.<ref name="Dinner Party">{{citation |title=Georgia O'Keeffe Place Setting |url=http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/166103/Georgia_OKeeffe_Place_Setting/ |access-date=June 5, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150620133438/http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/166103/Georgia_OKeeffe_Place_Setting |url-status=live |publisher=[[Brooklyn Museum]] |archive-date=June 20, 2015}}.</ref> Although feminists celebrated O'Keeffe as the originator of "[[feminist art|female iconography]]",<ref>{{cite web |title=Georgia O'Keeffe |url=https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/place_settings/georgia_o_keeffe |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170121025447/https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/place_settings/georgia_o_keeffe |archive-date=January 21, 2017 |access-date=January 18, 2017 |website=Brooklyn Museum}}</ref> she did not consider herself a feminist.<ref>{{cite web |date=October 10, 2016 |title=Georgia O'Keeffe at Tate Modern Review |url=http://www.designcurial.com/news/georgia-okeeffe-5020386/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170202054444/http://www.designcurial.com/news/georgia-okeeffe-5020386/ |archive-date=February 2, 2017 |access-date=January 18, 2017 |website=Design Curial}}</ref> She disliked being called a "woman artist" and wanted to be considered an "artist."<ref>{{Cite news |title=Georgia O'Keeffe |website=Education, Smithsonian American Art Museum |url=http://americanart.si.edu/education/insights/cappy/9aokeeffebio.html |access-date=January 20, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120629044755/http://americanart.si.edu/education/insights/cappy/9aokeeffebio.html |archive-date=June 29, 2012}}</ref>

==Publications==
* {{cite book |last=O'Keeffe |first=Georgia |year=1976 |title=Georgia O'Keeffe |location=New York |publisher=Viking Press |isbn=978-0-670-33710-1}}
* {{cite book |last=O'Keeffe |first=Georgia |year=1988 |title=Some Memories of Drawings |url=https://archive.org/details/somememoriesofdr00okee |location=Albuquerque, NM |publisher=University of New Mexico Press |isbn=978-0-8263-1113-9}}
* {{Cite book |last=O'Keeffe |first=Georgia |year=1993 |title=Georgia O'Keeffe: American and Modern |publisher=Yale University |isbn=978-0-300-05581-8|location=New Haven}}

;From her correspondence
* {{cite book |editor=Giboire, Clive |year=1990 |title=Lovingly, Georgia: The Complete Correspondence of Georgia O'Keeffe & Anita Pollitzer |url=https://archive.org/details/lovinglygeorgiac00okee |url-access=registration |location=New York |publisher=Simon & Schuster |isbn=978-0-671-69236-0}}
* {{cite book |editor=Greenough, Sarah |year=2011 |title=My Faraway One: Selected Letters of Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz |volume=One, 1915-1933 |edition=Annotated |location=New Haven, CT |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-16630-9}}

==Notes==
{{Notelist}}

==Citations==
{{reflist|30em}}

==References==
* {{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3Iv-DwAAQBAJ |title=Foursome |first1=Carolyn |last1=Burke|year=2020 |publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group |isbn=978-1-9848-9970-5}}
* {{Cite book |last1=Eisler |first1=Benita |year=1992 |title=O'Keeffe and Stieglitz: An American Romance |url=https://archive.org/details/okeeffestieglitz0000eisl/page/n5/mode/2up?q=bisexual |edition=Paperback reprint |location=New York |publisher=Penguin Books |isbn=0140170944}}
* {{cite book | first1=Linda |last1=Grasso |title= Equal under the Sky: Georgia O'Keeffe and Twentieth-Century Feminism | location=Albuquerque | publisher= University of New Mexico Press | year= 2017 | isbn=978-0826358813 }}

==Further reading==
{{Library resources box}}
* {{cite book |last=Eldredge |first=Charles C. | author-link = Charles C. Eldredge |title=Georgia O'Keeffe |location=New York |publisher=[[Harry N. Abrams, Inc.]] |year=1991 |isbn=978-0-8109-3657-7 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/georgiaokeeffe0000eldr }}
* {{cite book |editor=Haskell, Barbara|year=2009 |title=Georgia O'Keeffe: Abstraction |series=[[Whitney Museum of American Art]] |location=New Haven, CT |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-14817-6}}
* {{cite book |last=Hogrefe |first=Jeffrey |title=O'Keeffe: The Life of an American Legend |location=New York |publisher=Bantam |year=1994 |isbn=978-0-553-56545-4}}
* {{cite book |last=Lisle |first=Laurie |title=Portrait of an Artist |location=New York |publisher=Washington Square Press |year=1986 |isbn=978-0-671-60040-2}}
* {{cite book |last=Lynes |first=Barbara Buhler | author-link = Barbara Buhler Lynes|title=Georgia O'Keeffe: Catalogue Raisonné |location=Washington, D.C. |publisher=National Gallery of Art |year=1999 |isbn=978-0-300-08176-3}}
* {{cite book |last1=Lynes |first1=Barbara Buhler |last2=Poling-Kempes |first2=Lesley |last3=Turner |first3=Frederick W. | author3-link =Frederick W. Turner|title=Georgia O'Keeffe and New Mexico: A Sense of Place |location=Princeton, NJ |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=2004 |edition=3rd |isbn=978-0-691-11659-4}}
* {{cite book |last=Lynes |first=Barbara Buhler |title=Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Collections |year=2007 |publisher=Harry N. Abrams |isbn=978-0-8109-0957-1}}
* {{cite book |last1=Lynes |first1=Barbara Buhler |last2=Phillips |first2=Sandra S. |title=Georgia O'Keeffe and Ansel Adams: Natural Affinities |publisher=Little, Brown and Company |year=2008 |isbn=978-0-316-11832-3}}
* {{cite book |editor1=Lynes, Barbara Buhler |editor2=Weinberg, Jonathan |title=Shared Intelligence: American Painting and The Photograph |publisher=University of California Press |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-520-26906-4}}
* {{Cite book |last=Lynes |first=Barbara Buhler |year=2012 |title=Georgia O'Keeffe and Her Houses: Ghost Ranch and Abiquiu |publisher=Harry N. Abrams |isbn=978-1-4197-0394-2}}
* {{cite book |last=Lynes |first=Barbara Buhler |title=Georgia O'Keeffe: Life & Work |publisher=Skira |year=2012 |isbn=978-88-572-1232-6}}
* {{cite book |last=Merrill |first=C. S. |year=2010 |title=Weekends with O'Keeffe |publisher=University of New Mexico Press |location=Albuquerque, NM |isbn=978-0-8263-4928-6}}
* {{cite book |last=Messinger |first=Lisa Mintz |year=2001 |title=Georgia O'Keeffe |publisher=Thames & Hudson |location=London |isbn=0-500-20340-7}}
* {{cite book |last=Montgomery |first=Elizabeth |title=Georgia O'Keeffe |location=New York |publisher=Barnes & Noble |year=1993 |isbn=978-0-88029-951-0}}
* {{cite book |last=Orford |first=Emily-Jane Hills |title=The Creative Spirit: Stories of 20th Century Artists |publisher=Baico Publishing |location=Ottawa |year=2008 |isbn=978-1-897449-18-9}}
* {{cite book |last1=Patten |first1=Christine Taylor |first2=Alvaro |last2=Cardona-Hine |year=1992 |title=Miss O'Keeffe |location=Albuquerque, NM |publisher=University of New Mexico Press |isbn=978-0-8263-1322-5 |url=https://archive.org/details/missokeeffe00patt }}
* {{cite book |last=Peters |first=Sarah W. |title=Becoming O'Keeffe |location=New York |publisher=Abbeville Press |year=1991 |isbn=978-1-55859-362-6}}
* {{cite book |first1=Kathleen |last1=Pyle | title=Modernism and the Feminine Voice: O'Keeffe and the Women of the Stieglitz Circle | location=Berkeley | publisher=University of California Press | year= 2007|isbn=978-0-520-24189-3}}
* {{cite book |last1=Volpe |first1=Lisa |last2=Plotek |first2=Ariel |title=Georgia O'Keefe, Photographer |date=2021 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven, CT |isbn=9780300257809}}
* {{Cite book |last=Winter |first=Jeanette |title=My Name Is Georgia: A Portrait |publisher=First Voyager Books|year=1998|isbn=0-15-201649-X|location=San Diego, New York, London}}

==External links==
{{external links|date=April 2024}}
{{sister project links |commons=Category:Georgia O'Keeffe |wikt=no |n=no |b=no |v=no}}
* [https://collections.okeeffemuseum.org/ Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Collections Online]
* [[Smithsonian Institution]] Information System: [https://collections.si.edu/search/results.htm?q=%22Georgia+O%27Keeffe%22&fq=object_type%3A%22Paintings%22&fq=name:%22O%27Keeffe%2C+Georgia%22 paintings], [https://collections.si.edu/search/results.htm?q=%22Georgia+O%27Keeffe%22&fq=object_type%3A%22Paintings%22&fq=name%3A%22O%27Keeffe%2C+Georgia%22&fq=object_type:%22Still+lifes%22 still lifes], [https://collections.si.edu/search/results.htm?q=%22Georgia+O%27Keeffe%22&fq=name%3A%22O%27Keeffe%2C+Georgia%22&fq=object_type:%22Photographs%22 photographs], and [https://collections.si.edu/search/results.htm?q=%22Georgia+O%27Keeffe%22&fq=name%3A%22O%27Keeffe%2C+Georgia%22&fq=object_type:%22Sculpture%22 sculpture].
* {{MoMA artist|4360}}
** [https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/5493?installation_image_index=46 MoMA 2023 installation:] "Georgia O'Keeffe: To See Takes Time"
** [https://www.moma.org/audio/playlist/329/4347 Patricia Marroquin Norby and Samantha Friedman], curators, comment on Georgia O'Keeffe, ''Untitled (Patio Door)'', 1946, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
** [https://www.moma.org/audio/playlist/329/4346 Patricia Marroquin Norby], Native American curator, comments on Georgia O'Keeffe, ''Eagle Claw and Bean Necklace, 1934, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
* {{OL author|443402A}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20111128103911/http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/digitallibrary/asgo.html Alfred Stieglitz/Georgia O'Keeffe Archive] at the [[Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library]] at [[Yale University]] (archived copy)
* ''[https://www.playscripts.com/play/777 O'Keeffe!]'', a solo actor play by Lucinda McDermott, Playscripts, Inc.<!-- Worth inclusion here? Is this notable? It's presumably partly fiction. -->

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