Georgia O'Keeffe

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the art of Georgia O'Keeffe and relates this to three of her paintings, "Red Canna" (c.1923), "Ranchos Church"(1931) and "Horse's Skull with Pink Rose" (1931). The paper shows how O'Keeffe produced works with a blend of abstraction and pictorialism, notably for subjects such as flowers, animal bones and landscapes. Her work places a stress on contours and tonal transitions and her large flower paintings in particular are often seen as yonic symbols, meaning representations of the female sexual organ.

From the Paper:

"Georgia O'Keeffe was one of the great modernist painters in America. She was born in 1887 and died in 1966. O'Keeffe was a leading figure in American art for 70 years and remains influential to this day. This is what O'Keeffe does in this painting: Her painting "Ranchos Church" (1931) is one of several she did of the "Rancho de Taos Church" in Taos, New Mexico and other artists have emulated her and painted the same structure. The image in the painting is deceptively simplified, giving an impression of the shape of the church rather than an accurate rendering of the building. The texture of the image makes it appear organic, as if the building were a living thing emerging from the ground, with both the same color and differentiated from the blue of the sky above."

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