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Term: O'Keefe, Georgia (1887 - 1996)

Definition:

American painter. O'Keefe was born on November 15, 1887, to Francis C.  and Calyxtus O'Keefe, the second of seven children. She grew up on a farm in Sun Prairie where she received art lessons at home. When she was 15 the family left Wisconsin for Virginia where she graduated from high school in 1905, having already decided on a career as an artist. She attended the Art Institute of Chicago (1905¿1906) before moving to New York to study (1907¿1908). She returned briefly to Virginia, before landing jobs teaching art at Columbia College, Columbia, South Carolina, and West Texas State Normal College, Canyon, Texas. In 1916 she returned to New York to work with influential photographer Alfred Stieglitz, who had promoted her art and whom she married in 1924. The two worked together in the city and in Lake George, New York, until 1929, when O'Keeffe spent her first summer in New Mexico. Her reputation as a modern master grew steadily through many exhibits held after 1916 in New York and elsewhere. Stieglitz died in 1946, and three years later O'Keeffe moved to New Mexico, where she continued to paint for four more decades until she died on March 6, 1986, at age 98.