Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986) was an American modernist painter and draftswoman whose career spanned seven decades. Often called the “Mother of American modernism,” she became widely known for paintings of natural forms, especially flowers, hills, and desert landscapes. Although her work was sometimes associated with feminism, O'Keeffe preferred to be viewed simply as an artist rather than as a “woman artist.”
O'Keeffe studied art beginning in 1905 at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and later continued her education while working as a commercial illustrator and teacher. Influenced by Arthur Wesley Dow, she developed a distinctive style in watercolor and, more strikingly, in the charcoal drawings of 1915 that moved her toward abstraction. In 1916, Alfred Stieglitz exhibited her work in New York, and she later studied at Teachers College, Columbia University.
Invited by Stieglitz to live and work in New York City in 1918, O'Keeffe produced many paintings reflecting the city in oil, charcoal, pastel, and watercolor, which she called her “My New Yorks.” She and Stieglitz married in 1924. From 1929 onward, she spent increasing time in the Southwest, which inspired her paintings of New Mexico scenery and animal skulls, including Cow's Skull: Red, White, and Blue and Summer Days. She moved to New Mexico in 1949 after Stieglitz's death and lived there for the rest of her life, chiefly at her home and studio or at Ghost Ranch in Abiquiú, New Mexico, later in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her work is held in major museum collections, and the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum was established after her death.