Famous Quotes by Georgia O'Keeffe
A flower is relatively small... Still in a way - nobody sees a flower - so I said to myself - I'll paint it big.
Artists and religionists are never far apart, they go to the sources of revelation for what they choose to experience and what they report is the degree of their experiences. Intellect wishes to arrange - intuition wishes to accept.
A week ago it was the mountains I thought the most wonderful, and today it's the plains. I guess it's the feeling of bigness in both that carries me away.
Colour is one of the great things in the world that makes life worth living to me and as I have come to think of painting it is my efforts to create an equivalent with paint color for the world, life as I see it.
Dearest - my body is simply crazy with wanting you - If you don't come tomorrow - I don't see how I can wait for you - I wonder if your body wants mine the way mine wants yours - the kisses - the hotness - the wetness - all melting together - the being held so tight that it hurts - the strangle and the struggle.
Filling a space in a beautiful way - that is what art means to me.
Happiness goes like the wind, but what is interesting stays.
I decided that if I could paint that flower in a huge scale, you could not ignore its beauty.
I decided to start anew-to strip away what I had been taught, to accept as true my own thinking. This was one of the best times of my life. There was no one around to look at what I was doing, no one interested, no one to say anything about it one way or another. I was alone and singularly free, working into my own, unknown-no one to satisfy but myself. I began with charcoal and paper and decided not to use any color until it was impossible to do what I wanted to do in black and white. I believe it was June before I needed blue.
I feel there is something unexplored about woman that only a woman can explore.
I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for.
If you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for a moment.
I get out my work and have a show for myself before I have it publicly. I make up my own mind about it-how good or bad or indifferent it is. After that, the critics can write what they please. I have already settled it for myself so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free.
I had to create an equivalent for what I felt about what I was looking at - not copy it.
I have already settled it for myself so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free.
I long ago came to the conclusion that even if I could put down accurately the thing I saw and enjoyed, it would not give the observer the kind of feeling it gave me. I had to create an equivalent for what I felt about what I was looking at-not copy it.
I know now that most people are so closely concerned with themselves that they are not aware of their own individuality, I can see myself, and it has helped me to say what I want to say in paint.
Imagination makes you see all sorts of things.
Interest is the most important thing in life; happiness is temporary, but interest is continuous.
I think it's so foolish for people to want to be happy. Happy is so momentary - you're happy for an instant and then you start thinking again. Interest is the most important thing in life; happiness is temporary, but interest is continuous.
It's not enough to be nice in life. You've got to have nerve.
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.
God told me if I painted that mountain enough, I could have it.
Men put me down as the best woman painter. I think I'm one of the best painters.
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.
Nothing is less real than realism. Details are confusing. It is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis, that we get at the real meaning of things.
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 the time to look at it - I will make even busy New Yorkers take time to see what I see of flowers.
Someone else's vision will never be as good as your own vision of your self. Live and die with it 'cause in the end it's all you have. Lose it and you lose yourself and everything else. I should have listened to myself.
Sun-bleached bones were most wonderful against the blue - that blue that will always be there as it is now after all man's destruction is finished.
The days you work are the best days.
The men liked to put me down as the best woman painter. I think I'm one of the best painters.
To create one's world in any of the arts takes courage.
To make your unknown known - that's the important thing.
When I think of death, I only regret that I will not be able to see this beautiful country anymore unless the Indians are right and my spirit will walk here after I'm gone.
When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not.
Where I was born and where and how I have lived is unimportant. It is what I have done with where I have been that should be of interest.
Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing.
You get whatever accomplishment you are willing to declare.
Quotes about Georgia O'Keeffe by Art Historians and Fellow Artists
O'Keeffe's paintings are often seen as displays of flamboyant female sexuality. But a broader reading of her art suggests that it came from the life of a new kind of woman.
The Guardian
As an artist of national standing, Georgia O’Keeffe has been well known in America for many decades. More recently, her art has begun to attract similar attention and accolades abroad. The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum’s collections include nearly 150 paintings and hundreds of works on paper (pencil and charcoal drawings, as well as pastels and watercolors). The collections also include personal property, from rocks and bones to dresses and paintbrushes, and a significant archive of documents and photographs relating to the artist’s life and times.
Georgia O'Keeffe Museum
She played an important part in the development of modern art in America, becoming the first female painter to gain respect in New York's art world in the 1920s. Her unique and new way of painting nature, simplifying its shapes and forms meant that she was called a pioneer.
Tate.org.uk
O'Keeffe was a legend beginning in the 1920s, known as much for her independent spirit and female role model as for her dramatic and innovative works of art.
Wikipedia