Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Art and Madness Painters

Georgia O'Keeffee

1887-1986


Georgia O’Keeffe had two main connections with the Carolinas. The first is the story of what happened during her brief but life-changing tenure as a teacher of design and drawing at Columbia College, a two-year Methodist women’s school in Columbia, South Carolina. The second was her lifelong friendship with Anita Pollitzer, a native of Charleston and tireless advocate for women’s rights. The two stories are woven together by the fact that O’Keefe’s artistic breakthrough in Columbia is most fully documented in the letters she was writing at the time to Anita (collected and published in 1990 as Lovingly, Georgia, edited by Clive Gibori) and in the biography of her friend which Pollitzer wrote entitled A Woman on Paper(1988)


"Nobody sees a flower, really, it is so small. We haven't time - and to see takes time like to have a friend takes time'.

"If I could paint the flower exactly as I see it no one would see what I see because I would paint it small like the flower is small.

"So I said to myself - I'll paint what I see - what the flower is to me but I'll paint it big and they will be surprised into taking time to look at it - I will make even busy New Yorkers take time to see what I see of flowers"

..."Well, I made you take time to look at what I saw and when you took time to really notice my flower you hung all your own associations with flowers on my flower and you write about my flower as if I think and see what you think and see of the flower - and I don't."

~Georgia O'Keeffe

“...I often painted fragments of things because it seemed to make my statement as well as or better than the whole could...I had to create an equivalent for what I felt about what I was looking at...not copy it."~Georgia O'Keeffe

"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."


“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... " ~Georgia O'Keefe

Sources:

Roxana Robinson. 2000. O'Keeffe, Georgia. American National Biography Online
Roxana Robinson. 1990. Georgia O'Keeffe: A life. Bloomsbury, London. ISBN 0747505578
Barbara Buhler Lynes. 1999. Georgia O'Keeffe: Catalogue Raisonné. London. ISBN 0300087166
Lisa Mintz Messinger. 2001. Georgia O'Keeffe. Thames & Hudson, London. ISBN 0500203407

Have a wonderful day!


N Posted by Rain at 6/20/2006 03:13:00 PM

2 Comments

  • Anonymous Anonymous posted at 2:54 PM  
    She is my favorite painter. I have bought a calender that features her painting since the 1989. Amazing art. Amazing woman.

  • Anonymous Anonymous posted at 5:14 PM  
    She is definately one of my favorites. In fact when I was studying art in my early years at college, I came face to face with her work in Canberra and was sort of shocked at first how crisp and clear they are. When I have revisited her work, I see them as sympathetic and soft - such a beautiful reflection on nature.

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