Born in 1887, Georgia O’Keeffe was an American artist who painted nature in a way that showed how it made her feel. She is best known for her paintings of flowers and desert landscapes.

She played an important part in the development of modern art in America, becoming the first female painter to gain respect in New York’s art world in the 1920s. Her unique and new way of painting nature, simplifying its shapes and forms meant that she was called a pioneer.

As well as the shapes of the landscape itself, O’Keeffe was fascinated by the bones and skulls she found in the desert landscapes near where she lived.

Georgia knew from the age of 12 that she wanted to be an artist. She went to art school but what she was taught there didn’t seem relevant to the way she wanted to paint.

Then, in 1912 she discovered the revolutionary ideas of an artist and designer called Arthur Wesley Dow. He emphasised the importance of composition – which means how you arrange shapes and colours. As O’Keeffe explained: ‘His idea was, to put it simply, fill a space in a beautiful way’. This was a light-bulb moment for her and from then on she began to experiment with shapes, colours and marks.

Art in the 1920s was exciting. Artists didn’t just want to show how something looked but were using colours, shapes and brush-marks in unexpected ways to express meanings, ideas and feelings. This encouraged Georgia to develop her own unique style – a combination of abstract and realistic.

Georgia loved landscapes, especially the desert landscapes of the Southwest United States. She first visited New Mexico in 1916 and fell in love with the dramatic desert landscape with all of its rugged mountain terrain. She wanted to stay as close as possible to the remote landscape places that she loved, so she travelled around the desert drawing and painting. She battled the heat and the heavy wind and camped out under the stars. Luckily she had her favourite mobile studio with her – her car – which she’d specially adapted as a place to work!

Have you ever visited a landscape that has taken your breath away? Next time try putting those feelings across using shapes and colours and try, (as Georgia says) to ‘fill the space in a beautiful way’.

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