Georgia O’Keefe ( 1887 – 1986) – American artist

Found by Dr Connie Ruzich

Georgia Totto O'Keeffe was born on 15th November 1887. She was the second of seven children. She attended Town Hall School in Sun Prairie.  By the age of ten, she had decided to become an artist.  With her sisters, Ida and Anita, Georgia received art instruction from local watercolorist Sara Mann and went on to attended high school at The 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 Georgia's father started a business making rusticated cast concrete block in anticipation of a demand for the block in the Virginia Peninsula building trade, but the demand never materialized.  

Georgia stayed in Wisconsin attending Madison Central High School 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.  She then went on to study art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, working part time as a commercial illustrator or a teacher to pay for further education.

Alfred Stieglitz, an art dealer and photographer, held an exhibit of Georgia’s work in 1916.

Georgia taught and headed the art department at West Texas State Normal College, watching over her youngest sibling, Claudia, at her mother's request. In 1917, she visited her brother, Alexis, at a military camp in Texas before he shipped out for Europe during the First World War.  While there, she created the painting “The Flag” which expressed her anxiety and depression about the war.

She moved to New York in 1918 at Alfred Stieglitz's request and began working seriously as an artist. They developed a professional and personal relationship that led to their marriage on 11th December 1924.

After a long and illustrious career, Georgia died on 6th March 1986.