Georgia O'Keeffe

"The days you work are the best days."

Childhood

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When O'Keefe was growing up, girls were encouraged to make artwork to decorate the house, but never to grow up and become an artist! When O'Keeffe was only 12 years old she decided she was going to be an artist. She began taking art classes and during one class, she discovered her style of art. Instead of drawing many flowers, she kept sketching a wildflower over and over again. She positioned the flower in different ways and drew the flower the way she saw it. She did this a few times and then began to draw the flower in a simpler way until the flower almost didn’t look like a flower! Some people couldn't recognize the flower, but that didn't bother O'Keeffe.
Above are three paintings that Georgia O'Keeffe painted of the Southwest. She would frequently paint scenes of New Mexico.

O'Keeffe was a very bold woman. She truly didn't care what others thought about her art because she enjoyed her paintings, and that was enough for her! She so strongly believed this that she didn't even sign her paintings! She thought that people should be able to tell her paintings aside from others because of her unique style- not because of her signature.

Contribution to American Culture

Georgia O'Keeffe was one of the first female artists in America who became really popular. She showed women that they could be artists just like she was. She really showed women that they could do anything that men could do. Georgia O'Keeffe was the first female to be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for Art, and she was the first person to be awarded the National Medal of Arts.
"I feel there is something unexplored about women that only a woman can explore."


~ Georgia O'Keeffe

Georgia O'Keeffe's Flowers

"When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else."


~ Georgia O'Keeffe

O'Keeffe was was very inspired by flowers and created over 2,029 paintings of flowers! O'Keeffe saw flowers as another world that she explored through her paintings. O'Keeffe saw every flower in a different light and could paint one flower many times without them being identical.

These are three very similar flowers, but O'Keeffe is able to make each painting unique!

Lexi Sundell

Before Sundell really started to make many paintings, she enjoyed to garden and would grow thousands of flowers each year. She realized how beautiful the flowers were and she used her garden as her inspiration for her paintings. She now creates many paintings of flowers.
Lexi Sundell is a new artist who isn't very popular, but when I saw some of her work, I was immediately reminded of Georgia O'Keeffe. Like O'Keeffe, Sundell is inspired by nature- especially flowers. Both O'Keeffe's and Sandell's flowers are very beautiful, but each artist still has a very distinct way of painting.

Above are three images of poppies. The center is a photo of a real poppy. The first painting is Lexi Sundell painting of a poppy. The last painting is Georgia O'Keeffe's painting of a poppy.


Though both O'Keeffe and Sundell's painting are similar, there are some major differences. Sundell's flower is very beautiful and intricate. While O'Keeffe's flower is still very beautiful, her painting is more abstract and less intricate than Sundell's.


Sundell's works of art seem to be focused on being very elegant and beautiful while O'Keeffe's works seem to be more straight forward and abstract. Even the name of Sundell's art seems to be prettier than O'Keefe's.