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 been interested in the way we create things.
I have always been interested in the way we live.
I have always been interested in the way we die.
I have always been interested in the way we are.
I have always been interested in the way we become.
I have always been interested in the way we change.
I have always been interested in the way we stay the same.
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 forty years getting to know what to do with a brush.
I often think I am not much good at anything but painting.
I believe it is a great mistake to think that the best that can be done with a painting is to hang it on a wall.
I wish people were all trees and I was a tree and we could stand together, and I would not be so lonesome.
I have been surprised at the number of women who have told me they have always wanted to paint, but never had the courage.
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.
The men were all so busy making money that they didn't have time to look at anything.
I had to create an equivalent for what I felt about what I was looking at – not just copy it.
I don't want to be a great woman artist. I want to be an artist.
I am not a woman. I am an artist.
I don't see why we should have to be polite about it.
Contemporaries of Georgia O'Keeffe
Other Visual Artss born within 50 years of Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986).