Georgia O'Keefe

Georgia O’Keefe was an American artist and was quite famous for her works relating to Modernism. She came to the attention to New York Art community in 1916 and ever since had excelled in the world of art. Her paintings of enlarged flowers are her most famous works, as well as New York skyscrapers. She wanted to be an artist at the mere age of 10, and studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1905. She has been called “The Mother of American Modernism”.

This is a close-up painting of a flower, and first astounded me when I saw it. It is truly amazing to see so much detail and to paint each part of it onto a canvas. I like how the painting is incredibly vivid, and there is just so much saturation in the painting. A lot of O’Keefe’s work is of a high saturation, as it helps visibility and attracts attention much faster. The reds and yellow come out much stronger in this painting, as this is due to the flower she is painting. This is the reason why I like this image so much, as the red and yellow contrast very well and draw your eyes to the centre of the painting. This could be seen as a traditional style macro shot of a flower, as it is very close up. The colours also fade very well and are hard to see where they begin. There is also some purple in this, adding to the variety of colours without being too bold, a perfect amount. Overall I think this is an effective painting and looks very well made. 

This is an image I very much like, not because of the giant skull hanging in the image but because of the colours used and the way the oil painting looks almost like a comic. She and many other artists and musicians at the time wanted to express their work in a very patriotic way, a way that incorporated their country into their work. Instead of being a traditional oil painter, and doing what all the Regionalist painters did, which was paint landscapes of the American country, she painted a weathered cow skull to symbolise the endurance of America. I like the way the blue fades from the flag a little, to make room for some white, which is also a colour on the American flag. There is a shocking amount of detail in the cow skull, which really adds to the effectiveness of the painting. Everything in the background is very simple and the only detail is the creases in the flag, yet when you look at the skull there are many crevices and small details that she managed to perfect. I think this a very eye-catching image and sums up the old American West perfectly.