Georgia O'Keeffe
Georgia O'Keeffe
Georgia Totto O'Keeffewas an American artist. She is best known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. O'Keeffe has been recognized as the "Mother of American modernism"...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPainter
Date of Birth15 November 1887
CitySun Prairie, WI
CountryUnited States of America
beautiful believe hands
One day a hummingbird flew in-- It fluttered against the window til I got it down where I could reach it with an open umbrella-- --When I had it in my hand it was so small I couldn't believe I had it--but I could feel the intense life--so intense and so tiny-- ...You were like the humming bird to me... And I am rather inclined to feel that you and I know the best part of one another without spending much time together-- --It is not that I fear the knowing-- It is that I am at this moment willing to let you be what you are to me--it is beautiful and pure and very intensely alive.
believe artist world
I believe an artist is the last person in the world who can afford to be affected.
art believe black-and-white
I decided to start anew-to strip away what I had been taught, to accept as true my own thinking. This was one of the best times of my life. There was no one around to look at what I was doing, no one interested, no one to say anything about it one way or another. I was alone and singularly free, working into my own, unknown-no one to satisfy but myself. I began with charcoal and paper and decided not to use any color until it was impossible to do what I wanted to do in black and white. I believe it was June before I needed blue.
teacher art believe
Bement was a very good teacher but he was a very poor painter. I guess he wasn't a painter at all. He had no courage and I believe that to create one's own world in any of the arts takes courage.
flower believe done
I believe I would rather have Stieglitz like something - anything I had done - than anyone else I know.
absolutely courage life moment single terrified
I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life -- and I've never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.
american-artist arts courage create takes
To create one's own world in any of the arts takes courage.
american-artist cheaper hate models paint
I hate flowers. I only paint them because they're cheaper than models and they don't move.
american-artist anyone natural near occurred shapes taught
I said to myself, I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me - shapes and ideas so near to me - so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn't occurred to me to put them down.
except
He was nothing but a tool. ... He had no thought, no part in the painting, except that he could do what I told him to do.
anyone head ideas natural near occurred shapes taught thinking
I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me ... shapes and ideas so near to me ... so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn't occurred to me to put them down.
artist paint
Since I cannot sing, I paint.
summer morning memories
On the way I stood a moment looking out across the marshes with tall cattails, a patch of water, more marsh, then the woods with a few birch trees shining white at the edge on beyond. In the darkness it all looked just like I felt. Wet and swampy and gloomy, very gloomy. In the morning I painted it. My memory of it is that it was probably my best painting that summer
knowing lakes long
I find that I have painted my life, things happening in my life - without knowing. After painting the shell and shingle many times, I did a misty landscape of the mountain across the lake, and the mountain became the shape of the shingle - the mountain I saw out my window, the shingle on the table in my room. I did not notice that they were alike for a long time after they were painted.