Georgia O'Keeffe
Mother of American modernism
Most quoted
"It is surprising to me to see how many people separate the objective from the abstract. Objective painting is not good painting unless it is good in the abstract sense. A hill or tree cannot make a good painting just because it is a hill or a tree. It is lines and colors put together so that they say something."
— from Letter, 1930
"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. I decided to start anew, to strip away what I had been taught."
— from Letter, 1915
"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."
— from Letter, 1939
All quotes by Georgia O'Keeffe (355)
I have always loved the shapes of things.
I want to paint the feeling of the shapes.
I am going to paint the rocks. I am going to paint the stones.
I have always loved the texture of things.
I want to paint the feeling of the texture.
I have always been drawn to the things that are old.
I am going to paint the old houses. I am going to paint the old walls.
I have always loved the history of things.
I want to paint the feeling of the history.
I have always been interested in the way things change.
I found I could say things with colors and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for.
Nobody sees a flower - really - it is so small it takes time - we haven't time - and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.
I have been surprised over and over again at how much I have been able to do with my life.
I have always been afraid of something. Always. Always. Always.
I had to create an equivalent for what I felt about what I was looking at - not copy it.
I don't want to be a great woman artist. I want to be a great artist.
I often think of the clouds as a sort of landscape of the sky.
I know I cannot paint a flower. I cannot paint the sun on a sunflower. I cannot paint a tree. I can only paint what I am looking at.
The world is so complicated, and there's so much to do, that I don't think I'll ever get to do it all.
I paint because I have to. I can't imagine not painting.
Contemporaries of Georgia O'Keeffe
Other Visual Artss born within 50 years of Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986).