The clean clear colours [of a Shanty farm] were in my head. But one day as I looked at the brown burned wood of the Shanty, I thought 'I can paint on… - Georgia O'Keeffe

" "

The clean clear colours [of a Shanty farm] were in my head. But one day as I looked at the brown burned wood of the Shanty, I thought 'I can paint one of those dismal-coloured paintings like the men. I think just for fun I will try — all low-toned and dreary with the tree besides the door.' In my next show [c. 1923], 'The Shanty' went up. The men seemed to approve of it. They seemed to think that maybe I was beginning to paint.. ..that was my only low-toned dismal-coloured painting.

English
Collect this quote

About Georgia O'Keeffe

Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (15 November 1887 – 6 March 1986) was an American modernist painter. She was known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. O'Keeffe has been called the "Mother of American modernism". O'Keeffe is a major figure in American art. She is chiefly known for paintings in which she synthesizes abstraction and representation in paintings of flowers, rocks, shells, animal bones and landscapes. Her paintings present crisply contoured forms that are replete with subtle tonal transitions of varying colors, and she often transformed her subject matter into powerful abstract images.

Also Known As

Pen Names: Okeef, Georgia Okeefe, Georgia O'Keeffe, Georgia Totto Stieglitz, Georgia O'Keeffe
Alternative Names: Mrs. Alfred Stieglitz Georgia O'Keeffe Stieglitz Alfred, Mrs. Stieglitz Georgia Totto O'Keeffe Georgia O' Keeffe Georgia Stieglitz O'Keeffe Georgia O’Keeffe
PREMIUM FEATURE
Advanced Search Filters

Filter search results by source, date, and more with our premium search tools.

Related quotes. More quotes will automatically load as you scroll down, or you can use the load more buttons.

Additional quotes by Georgia O'Keeffe

Anita, I have just come the comforting conclusion that I'll have to paint acres and acres of water color landscapes before I will look for even a passably fair one. After about ten attempts — I certainly have to laugh at myself — It's like feeling around in the dark — thought I knew what I was going to try to do but I find I don't — and guess I'll only find out by slaving away at it. I feel — like a wreck — Have been working like mad all day — and you know how deliciously disgusted with every thing one can be — when the sun begins to go down — and one has been working ones head off all day. It gives me the sensation I used to have when I was a youngster and was going away from home on the train — It is a very special sort of sick feeling.

So, probably.. ..when I started painting the pelvis bones I was most interested in the holes in the bones — what I saw through them - particularly the blue from holding them up in the sun against the sky as one is apt to do when one seems to have more sky than earth in one's world.. ..they were most beautiful against the Blue — that Blue that will always be there as it is now after all man's destruction is finished.

Go Premium

Support Quotewise while enjoying an ad-free experience and premium features.

View Plans
Later I had two green ones [alligator pears] — not so perfect. I painted them several times [c. 1920] when the men [American modernist artists, a.o. Marsden Hartley ] didn't think much of what I was doing. They were all discussing Paul Cézanne, with long involved remarks about the 'plastic quality' of his form and colour. I was an outsider. My colour and form were not acceptable. It had nothing to do with Cézanne or anything else. I didn't understand what they were talking about why one colour was better than another.. .Years later when I finally got to Cézanne's Mont Sainte-Victoire in the south of France, I remember sitting there thinking, 'How could they attach all those analytical remarks to anything he did with that mountain?' All those entire words piled on top of that poor little mountain seemed too much.

Loading...