Georgia O'Keeffe quotes - page 3

Georgia O'Keeffe was an influential American artist known for her distinctive paintings of flowers, skyscrapers, and southwestern landscapes. Her bold use of color and innovative compositions made her a pioneer of modern American art. She is often called the "Mother of American modernism" and remains an inspiration for generations of artists. Here are 84 of her quotes:

Walked way out in the plains in the moonlight – there is no wind – so still – And so light – I wish you could see it – with miss Hibbits – she was born in Ireland –... The plains start right across the roads from this house – there is just nothing out there – she says she has often ridden till ten or eleven o'clock at night – alone – nothing to be afraid of – because there is nothing out there – Its great – I am not even having the smallest wish for N. Y. ...

Georgia O'Keeffe

.. About my work Howard – I always have two opinions – one is my way of seeing it for myself – and for myself I am never satisfied – never really – I almost always fail – always I think – now next time I can do it – Maybe that is part of what keeps one working – I can also look at myself – by that I mean my work from the point of view of the looking public – and that is the way I look at it when I think of showing. I have always first had a show for myself – and made up my mind – then after that it doesn't matter to me very much what anyone else say – good or bad.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Bement [her art teacher] told me things to read. He told me of exhibitions to go and see [c. 1917].... the two books that he told me to get were Jeromy Eddy 'Cubists and Post-impressionism' and Kandinsky 'On the Spiritual of Art'... It was some time before I really begun to use the ideas. I didn't start at until I was down in Carolina - alone - thinking things out for myself.

Georgia O'Keeffe

As I opened the door - I heard cattle - many - in the pens over by the track - lowing - I wonder if you ever heard a whole lot of cattle lowing - it sounds different here - too - just ground and sky - and the lowing cattle - you hardly see - either them or the pens - the pens are of weather beaten boards - take on the color of the ground it seems - I like it and I don't like it - its like music - I made up a tune this morning - Well - I heard the cattle - as I opened the door - and I liked it and I didn't liked it - then I read your letter as I walked to breakfast - a great letter - Anita.

Georgia O'Keeffe

The large 'White Flower' [Georgia painted in 1929] with the golden heart is something I have to say about White – quite different from what White has been meaning to me. Whether the flower or the color is the focus I do not know. I do know that the flower is painted large to convey to you my experience of the flower – and what is my experience of the flower if it is not color.

Georgia O'Keeffe

I am on the train going back to Stieglitz – and in a hurry to get there – I have had four months west and it seems to be all that I needed – It has been like the wind and the sun – there doesn't seem to have been a crack of the waking day or night that wasn't full – I haven't gained an ounce in weight but I feel so alive that I am apt to crack at any moment..

Georgia O'Keeffe

Dear Anita, I read your manuscript some time ago and it has lain on my table -.. You have written your dream picture of me - and I am not that way at all. We are such different kinds of people that it reads as if we spoke different languages and didn't understand one another at all. You write of the legends others have made up about me - but when I read your manuscript, it seems as much a myth as all the others. I really believe that to call this my biography when it has so little to do with me is impossible - and I cannot have my name exploited to further it.

Georgia O'Keeffe

My spring has been much better than every travelling springs of the last two years - I have been working - or trying to work my garden into a kind of permanent shape... At the moment I have three rose bushes so full of red and yellow roses that they look on fire - they are really astonishing - You would really laugh to see them - two are very tall - the other smaller - It is a rose that is the reddest red on top and yellow underneath - then sometimes a few spots that are deep butter yellow - and an odd iris - dirty lavender petals reaching up - a pale lavender mixed with yellow that greys it and yellow petals mixed with a little lavender drooping down - very handsome - There are lots of ordinary colors too - many kinds. Well - that's my life.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Before I put a brush to canvas, I question, Is this mine . . . Is it influenced by some idea which I have acquired from some man . . . I am trying with all my skill to do a painting that is all of women, as well as all of me.

Georgia O'Keeffe

My first memory is of the brightness of light ... light all around. I was sitting among pillows on a quilt on the ground ... very large white pillows ...

Georgia O'Keeffe

I have things in my head that are not like what anyone taught me - shapes and ideas so near to me, so natural to my way of being and thinking.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Equal Rights and Responsibilities is a basic idea that would have very important psychological effects on women and men from the time they are born. It could very much change the girl child's idea of her place in the world... It seems to me very important to the idea of true democracy – to my country – and to the world eventually – that all men and women stand equal under the sky – I wish that you could be with us in this fight..

Georgia O'Keeffe

I thought you could write something about me that men can't – What I want written – I do not know – I have no definite idea of what it should be. – but a woman who has lived many things and who sees lines and colors as an expression of living – might say something that a man can't – I feel there is something unexplored about woman that only a woman can explore – Men have done all they can do about it. Does that mean anything to you – or doesn't it?

Georgia O'Keeffe

Those perilous climbings [with her sister Claudia, in the Palo Duro Canyon, 1916] were frightening, but it was wonderful to me and not like anything I had known before. The fright of the day was still with me in the night and I would often dream that the foot of my bed rose straight up into the air - then just as it was to fall I would wake up. Many drawings came from days like that, and later some oil paintings.

Georgia O'Keeffe

After I had been in Canada painting the wide white barns along the Saint Lawrence river, I thought how different the life of the Canadian farmer was from life in Cebolla. So I painted [in 1945] the Cebolla church which is so typical of that difficult life. I have always thought it one of my very good paintings, though its message is not as pleasant as many of the others.

Georgia O'Keeffe

It seems odd to think of you at Lake George tonight – I can smell the outdoors – and hear it – and see the stars – So often before I went to bed at night I would walk out toward the barn and look at the sky in the open space. There was no light little house – there were no people – there was only the night – I will never go back again – maybe to stand just for a moment where I put the little bit that was left of Alfred [ Alfred Stieglitz, her husband] after he was cremated – but I think not even for that. I put him where he would hear the lake.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Last night I couldn't sleep till after four in the morning – I had been out to the canyon all afternoon – till late at night – wonderful color – I wish I could tell you how big – and with the night the colors deeper and darker – cattle on the pastures in the bottom looked line little pinheads. I can understand Pa Dow painting his pretty colored canyons – it must have been a great temptation – no wonder he fell. Then the moon rose right up out of the ground after we got out on the plains again – battered a little where he bumped his head but enormous – There was no wind – it was just big and still – so very big and still – long legged jack rabbits hopping across in front of the light as we passed – A great place to see the night time because there is nothing else.

Georgia O'Keeffe

The meaning of a word - to me - is not as exact as the meaning of a colour. Colours and shapes make a more definite statement than words. I write this [1974] because such odd things have been done about me with words. I have often been told what to paint ... I make this effort because no one else can know how my paintings happen.

Georgia O'Keeffe

I painted 'the Shelton with Sunspots' [New York], in 1926. I went out one morning to look at it before I started to work and there was the optical illusion of a bite out of one side of the tower made by the sun, with sunspots against the building and against the sky. I made that painting beginning at the upper left and went off at the lower right without going back.

Georgia O'Keeffe

I don't remember where I picked up the head - or the hollyhock. Flowers were planted among the vegetables in the garden between the house and the hills and I probably picked the hollyhock one day as I walked past. My paintings sometimes grow by pieces from what is around... I have used these things to say what is to me the wideness and wonder of the world as I live in it.

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.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Anita – I am so glad I'm out here – I can't tell you how much I like it. I like the plains – and I like the work [her painting] – everything is so ridiculously new – and there is something about it that just makes you glad you're living here – You understand – there is nothing here – so maybe there is something wrong with me that I am liking it so much.

Georgia O'Keeffe