Wisconsin Biographies

Georgia O’Keeffe: Painting Her Own Path

[lively music horray!]

Nichole Scott (narrator): What do you do if you have a goal that’s really hard to achieve? How do you overcome obstacles and challenges, especially if there’s no clear direction? Today, we’re going to learn about Georgia O’Keeffe. She wanted to become an artist at a time when there weren’t many women who became famous artists. So she had to chart her own path.

Georgia O’Keeffe was born just outside of Sun Prairie, Wisconsin in 1887. She was the second child in a family of seven children. The O’Keeffe family lived on a farm. That meant lots of chores for everyone, including milking cows, working with horses, and tending to the vegetable garden. But there was still time for hide and seek in the family’s big barns or playing on the swings behind their house.

In the evenings, Georgia’s mother often read history books and adventure stories to the children. In the winter of 1898, 11-year-old Georgia started art lessons. She loved drawing and painting, and what was most exciting was the process of learning and doing her best to keep improving at her art. But doing her best work wasn’t always easy. One winter night, she was painting a scene outside her window. As she was working, she realized how hard it was to show trees and snow in the moonlight. Georgia loved to look closely at the world. She could see the colors of the landscape. But figuring out which colors of paint to use to capture them wasn’t easy. What was the right shade for the dark trees or for the sky? None of these challenges stopped Georgia. She kept working at her drawings and paintings.

When a friend in eighth grade asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up, Georgia didn’t hesitate. I’m going to be an artist. Georgia continued her art lessons when she started high school. But on the first day of classes, her art teacher, Sister Angelique, criticized one of her drawings. She said it was too small and dark. Georgia was crushed and did her best not to cry. But instead of giving up, she kept working at her goal to get better at drawing. She made her drawings bigger and lighter. By the end of the year, one of them was even chosen to be featured in the school catalog.

In just a few years, Georgia was attending the best art schools in the country. First, the Art Institute of Chicago in 1905, and then the Art Students League in New York City starting in 1907. But she still faced obstacles to her dream of becoming an artist.

One day at art school in New York, another student stopped her in the stairway. He told her that she’d never be a great artist no matter what she did, but that he would be a great painter. Did this make Georgia give up? No. Georgia did the only thing that mattered. She ignored her classmate and turned back to her art. She kept painting and drawing and even started teaching art.

Rather than listening to people who said she couldn’t do things, she focused on her friends and family, the people who believed in her. Soon, Georgia’s work was getting attention from the art world. In 1917, she had her first show at a gallery in New York City. A big deal for a young artist. More and more shows at galleries and museums followed.

In the 1940s, Georgia moved to New Mexico. By this point, she was recognized as a great artist. She was known for her paintings of flowers, buildings, bones, and landscapes. Just like she’d done ever since she was a child, Georgia looked closely at the world and worked hard to express her personal vision in her art throughout her life. Georgia’s childhood in Wisconsin had a huge impact on her. Farm life taught her the value of hard work and story times with her mother instilled a lifelong love of art and education.

There were many times when Georgia might have given up on her dream, but she chose to keep working at it. Her story is a reminder to all of us to keep going, even when obstacles block our path, and to stop and enjoy the beauty around us whenever we get the chance.