DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, in my own words — the story of Georgia O'Keeffe and the canyon country that helped make her who she was. Born in 1887 in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, to Francis and Ida O'Keeffe, Georgia Totto O'Keeffe came into a world that had no idea what it was in for. The family moved to Virginia, where she and her siblings went to school, and from an early age it was clear she was drawn toward art.
She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, then the Art Students League in New York City, worked for a stretch as a commercial artist, attended classes at the University of Virginia — she was, in short, a woman in motion, collecting influences the way a West Texas sky collects weather. Then, between 1912 and 1914, she came to Amarillo to teach art. And that's where the Panhandle got hold of her.
She described it herself — the openness, the dry landscape, the beauty of that wild world. Hard to argue with a woman who could see the way she could see. She left in 1914, heading back East to study at Columbia University in New York, and to teach in Virginia and South Carolina.
But Columbia gave her something that would quietly reorder everything. She met Arthur Wesley Dow there — a man shaped by east Asian painters and the British Arts and Crafts movement — and he pushed her toward a more abstract way of approaching painting. Her vision shifted.
You could almost hear something click into place. In 1916, O'Keeffe came back to Texas. This time she came as a faculty member at West Texas State Normal College — today you'd know it as West Texas A&M University — and she held her classes in Old Main.
Palo Duro Canyon was right there, patient and enormous, and it got into her work. She began incorporating themes from nature, moving away from Representationalism, letting the landscape speak through her brush in ways that hadn't quite been done before. In 1917, she showed many of those Texas pieces at Alfred Stieglitz's gallery in New York City.
The following year, she moved to New York, and in 1924 she married Stieglitz — a noted photographer in his own right. Both of them produced large bodies of acclaimed work, two major artists sharing a life and a city. Then in 1946, Stieglitz died, and O'Keeffe moved to New Mexico, where she kept on reaching for that creative vision and that unmistakable style of hers.
She lived until 1986 — nearly a full century — and she never stopped being shaped, in part, by what she'd found out here in canyon country. Today she remains a major influence in American art. And somewhere at the bottom of all that influence, if you trace it back far enough, you find the Texas Panhandle, wide open and waiting, exactly as she described it — that dry landscape, that wild world.
What the marker says
Renowned artist Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (1887-1986) was born in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin to Francis and Ida (Totto) O'Keeffe. The family moved to Virginia, where O'Keeffe and her siblings attended school. She studied art at various schools before enrolling in the Art Institute of Chicago and later the Art Students League in New York City. She then worked as a commercial artist before attending classes at the University of Virginia. In order to gain teaching experience, she taught art in Amarillo between 1912 and 1914. The Texas Panhandle attracted her as an artist because of "the openness. The dry landscape. The beauty of that wild world." In 1914, O'Keeffe returned to the East, studying at Columbia University in New York, and teaching in Virginia and South Carolina. At Columbia University, she met Arthur Wesley Dow, who greatly altered her vision of art. Influenced by east Asian painters and the British Arts and Crafts movement, he inspired her to approach painting in a more abstract manner. O'Keeffe returned to Texas in 1916 as a faculty member at West Texas State Normal College, now West Texas A&M University, where she held classes in Old Main. Inspired by the landscape, particularly Palo Duro Canyon, she began incorporating themes from nature in her work, moving away from Representationalism. O'Keeffe showed many of her Texas pieces at Alfred Stieglitz's New York City gallery in 1917. The following year, she moved to New York and in 1924 married Stieglitz, a noted photographer. Both artists produced large bodies of acclaimed work. Following Stieglitz's death in 1946, O'Keeffe moved to New Mexico, where she continued to explore her creative vision and unique style, shaped in part by her Canyon years. Today, she remains a major influence in American Art.