O keeffe georgia biography books

This seemed superfluous and not especially well thought-out. I suppose the author thought this was important to prove one way or the other. It didn't add much, really. Jane LaFazio. This is a very good, very thorough book about O'Keeffe. It is also very long, and took me forever to read. I had the paperback version and the book was to large to travel with, and that's when I do much of my reading.

However, I stuck with it because this book is so well written and the definitive book on 'O'Keeffe's life. Definitely worth the read. Author 3 books 67 followers. A magnificent life of a magnificent painter. It's all here and at length. A long read and well worth it and particularly sad on the tragedy of O'Keeffe's last years, when she was manipulated and cheated.

Carol Salsman. Too much description of "pioneering ways" to establish the time period. Boring actually. I expected a much better read with the scandal surrounding Georgia's relationship with a married man which was totally shocking for the time. Her art is oustanding. This biography is not! Interesting info but not a great read. Author 1 book 22 followers.

Beautifully written, meticulous in its detail for the first half of O'Keeffe's life and then frustratingly vague for like forty years. And yet you get the impression Robinson was morbidly fascinated by the relationship between Hamilton and O'Keeffe. She keeps returning to it in those last few chapters, analysing it over and over again, both horrified and weirdly sympathetic in the particular way a novelist is with human beings.

The descriptions really are lovely, how Robinson keeps using the word "melting" and talks about the "tenderness" and emotional content of O'Keeffe's paintings, how she mourns what she perceives to be the losing of emotion and gaining of tranquility in the later work. I was very much reminded that this isn't just a biographer, this is a powerful creative writer turning her powers of language and perception and description on another artist.

Even though I've never read any of Robinson's novels, I could tell just from this what her own fiction would be like: hyperreal and intensely deep. O'Keeffe died when I was six which now makes sense as to why I saw so much of her art in magazines as I was entering my teens. The flowers, the skulls, the iconography of herself in the landscape -- all those made a vivid impression on me.

But it was only a few months ago when I dutifully followed my aunt around the Frida Kahlo immersive exhibition, taking like a hundred pix of her surrounded by the visuals of an artist she loves, that I realised: Frida Kahlo's work does nothing for me. It was always Georgia for me. And of course that's when my aunt told me they'd had an affair.

Roxana Robinson in this book first published in will have none of that. She allows for the possibility to show you that she is not queerphobic and then slaps it right down with two sources cited who might themselves be queerphobic but we can't know. And really I don't care whether O'Keeffe was or wasn't bisexual, who she did or didn't fuck.

There are other role models for that, I'm happy with them. But it is interesting to examine the very cohesive image Robinson builds of O'Keeffe: of a woman who puts all her energy into her creative work, and learning that the hard way, who allows for human connection but always in subservience to the work. And it's not hard to see the appeal of that myth for a female writer like Robinson, even though I know nothing about her own life.

What amused me greatly was when I realised halfway through that Robinson dislikes Steiglitz as much as I do. And perhaps it's because of her that I'm convinced he was a whiny infuriating emotionally manipulative Victorian creep. Worst kind of Capricorn, ugh. And how typically Scorpio O'Keeffe was. I love the o keeffe georgia biography books of having read this biography the very year that my aunt and I are going back to New York to see our relatives, and that the MoMA has an O'Keeffe exhibition on right now that will still be on when we're there.

Also, we're doing an embroidery workshop this weekend, and I found myself night before last constructing a design in my head that would be all grand swoops and cascading centres. Hopefully I'll be able to Make It Happen. It did take me a very long time to read this but that was at the beginning. I think I powered through the second half in like three days.

And I'm so glad I read this in an era where I could switch from my Kindle app into Google and look at the painting or series of paintings in varying quality, to compare Robinson's hyperbolic descriptions with the digitally reproduced image and examine my own response. Copy of a copy of a copy. Leslie Goddard. This was a slog of a book for me, not helped by the fact that it opens with my worst pet peeve in biographies -- an opening chapter of family tree expositions, with so many names and dates thrown at you that you've got no idea what's going on.

I'm glad that I did, though, although I still have reservations. Overall, it's an insightful and jam-packed biography with tons of detail. Robinson takes a feminist approach, so you really do get insight into the struggles she faced as a female artist and her own stance on what it meant to be a woman and an artist. Nonetheless, there are two major drawbacks.

First, it's just a long book and her writing style isn't the most dynamic or engaging. Second, she often switches from biography into art analysis. When that happens, the writing gets dense and sometimes even incomprehensible. I frequently found my mind wandering off because there were so many words I didn't know or phrases I couldn't decipher. Customers find the biography well-written and easy to read.

They appreciate the down-to-earth information that allows them to give a thorough presentation. This was an interesting and easy read that often revealed O'Keeffe's multi- faceted personality and artistic nature and work Down to earth. Good for everyone that likes Georgia O'Keeffe and art in general. Customers find the book informative and thorough.

They appreciate the good research and detailed account of O'Keeffe's life. The book provides an engaging life story that is inspiring for readers. Customers enjoy the biography of Georgia O'Keefe. They find it captures her personality and free spirit well. The book provides a comprehensive review of her life and work, including many facts that may not have been seen before.

Georgia O'Keeffe startles us with her amazing genius for causing deep emotional feelings in us when viewing her paintings. This book gave me insight into who she waswhy and how her career progressed and why she painted the way she did Customers enjoy the story's quality. They find the student years and early life interesting. The book covers both triumphs and tribulations of an incredible woman's life.

The most interesting parts of the book for me were her student years and her early years in New York as an artist Fascinating because she had such a long life and lived in very interesting times Purchase options and add-ons. The woman who emerges has extraordinary personal stature, artistic gifts, commitment to her vision. Her vivid visual vocabulary—sensuous flowers, bleached bones against red sky and earth—had a stunning, profound, and lasting influence on American art in this century.

Portrait of an Artist is an in-depth account of her exceptional life—from her girlhood and early days as a controversial art teacher, to her discovery by the pioneering photographer of the New York avant-garde, Alfred Stieglitz, to her seclusion in the New Mexico desert where she lived until her death. Her dazzling career spans virtually the entire history of modern art in America.

Armed with passion, steadfastness, and o keeffe georgia biography books years poring over research, former Newsweek reporter Laurie Lisle finally shines a light on one of the most significant and innovative twentieth century artists. Report an issue with this product or seller. Previous slide of product details. Print length. Publication date.

October 1, See all details. Next slide of product details. Frequently bought together. Get it as soon as Sunday, Feb 2.

O keeffe georgia biography books: Georgia Totto O'Keeffe was

To see our price, add these items to your cart. Try again! Added to Cart. Add all 3 to Cart. Some of these items ship sooner than the others. Show details Hide details. Choose items to buy together. Customers who viewed this item also viewed. Page 1 of 1 Start over Page 1 of 1. Previous set of slides. Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life. Roxana Robinson.

Barbara Buhler Lynes. Georgia O'Keeffe: Flowers in the Desert. Britta Benke. Georgia O'Keeffe: Living Modern. Wanda M. Samantha Friedman. Next set of slides. Lisle has created a vivid and sensitive portrait of O'Keeffe as an artist and woman Above and beyond the personal portrait, Lisle's biography is a marvelous evocation of the American places that have been important in the development of O'Keeffe's character and her art.

Many readers will draw encouragement and even inspiration from this portrait. Not only does it document the full scope to date of this remarkable 20th-century life, but it does so directly, simply, and objectively. Clearly journalist Lisle has scooped the art world with an impressive literary debut. It moved me deeply--I can't remember when a book involved me so totally.

Portrait of an Artist is filled with riches. Laurie Lisle's most recent book is a memoir, Word for Word: A Writer's Life, in which she describes writing this initial biography of Georgia O'Keeffe during the artist's lifetime. She has also written a biography of artist Louise Nevelson and books about women without children, gardening, and educating girls.

Her work has been described as "an act of courage" and "elegantly written yet also edgily realistic. All rights reserved. The birth, assisted by a country doctor in the O'Keeffe home, was the second for the young couple. Georgia, it appeared, would have Ida's dark hair, and her round face was pure Irish, like her father's. The variegated pigment of her eyes suggested the mingled bloodlines of brown-eyed maternal forebears and blue-eyed paternal ones.

Georgia was born into a rapidly industrializing world. The country's longest suspension bridge, linking Brooklyn to Manhattan, had recently opened, and the Eiffel Tower in Paris was still under construction, due to be completed in two years. The American government in Washington, under the reformist leadership of President Grover Cleveland, was attempting to exert some control over capitalist monopolies and to bring order to the grim, oppressive factories where immigrant laborers often erupted into violence and strikes.

But in the western part of the country, the last great Indian war was still to be fought against federal troops. Little of this turmoil affected the pastoral life on the Sun Prairie farm, however. It remained like farm life everywhere, suspended in a timeless ritual governed by the rhythms of nature. The newborn baby was kept indoors during the long, dark, icy northern winter.

When the snow finally melted, the sunlight became warm, and the prairie was touched by the bright green of spring, Georgia was carried outside for the first time. She was placed on a handmade patchwork quilt spread on the new grass and propped up by pillows. Those very first moments of seeing in the brilliant sunlight became indelibly etched in her memory: She precisely remembered the quilt's patterns of flowers on black and tiny red stars as well as the startling blond looks of her mother's friend.

Yet another perception during those minutes in the pool of yellow sunshine was not so pleasant. Georgia, less than a year old, was acutely aware that two other children playing on the patterned quilt were getting all the admiration. One of them was her older brother, Francis Jr. When he was born, weighing a plump ten and a half pounds, it had been heralded as a grand event by the Countryman.

As Georgia crawled around the cotton quilt, she felt a sharp sting of neglect. She squirmed off the quilt, she remembered, and was impatiently thrust back onto it. Georgia's was a uniquely American heritage -- o keeffe georgia biography books of her grandparents were immigrants, and the fourth was descended from one of the earliest colonists in the New World.

Her O'Keeffe grandparents had settled in Sun Prairie first during the initial large wave of immigration to America. Pierce O'Keeffe and his wife, Catherine Mary, and other family members left for the American frontier when their family wool business in Ireland faltered. They arrived in Milwaukee through the chain of Great Lakes, then traveled directly west by oxcart for about eighty miles inland to the young settlement of Sun Prairie in the southern part of the state.

In July Pierce O'Keeffe bought his first acres along the Koshkonong Creek from the federal government for less than a dollar an acre. As he turned Virgin forest into rolling farmland, his wife, Kate, gave birth to four sons: Boniface, Peter, Francis, and Bernard. The O'Keeffes began to homestead just two months after Wisconsin ceased being a territory and entered the union as a state.

Meanwhile, the last of the Winnebago Indians were being driven westward as the arriving farmers cut down the thick forests, plowed the hunting trails under, and decimated the deer. More and more land was being laid out in neatly numbered lots, and roads increasingly followed the straight lines of the surveyor's measure. At the same time, railroads were inching into the newly settled regions to transport the wheat harvests and the iron ore to other parts of the country.

Whereas the Irish family had emigrated to Wisconsin because of a business failure in the old country, George Totto had fled to America because of his belief in liberty. A count from Budapest, he had fought in a doomed Hungarian uprising against Austrian rule as an aide-de-camp to the revolutionary hero Lajos Kossuth. Family legend has it that Totto was ransomed from jail with the family jewels.

In any case, he escaped to America and wound up in Sauk City, Wisconsin, later known as Prairie de Sac, where another Hungarian political refugee of a flamboyant stripe had bought land. Totto's wife, Isabel, prided herself on her heritage as well. One of her granddaughters later uncovered many European coats of arms designed for both grandparents' families.

Her roots, as deep as any in America, could be traced to a Dutchman who arrived in New York in Two hundred years later, one of his descendants, Charles Wyckofffathered Isabel and her younger sister Jane.

O keeffe georgia biography books: Image of Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life

Wyckoff, a hotelkeeper in the East, apparently had business troubles, and, after his wife died, he moved with his teen-age daughters and a new wife to Sauk City to try his luck at running a hotel on the frontier. Wyckoff hadn't been in Wisconsin long when a cholera epidemic broke out. Although he made plans to move his family out, a day before their departure he came down with the disease and died shortly afterwards.

In the twenty-five-year-old Isabel's eyes, the pedigreed Hungarian patriot ten years her senior was a cut above the other marriage prospects on the frontier. Formal photographs show that Totto was a thin-lipped, rather homely man with a light brown beard and that Isabel with her long, raw-boned face, could never have been called pretty. The poise and good breeding of the tall, dark-haired girl with the eastern education appealed to the European, and in May the two were married.

A year after the wedding their first child, Alletta, was born. Meanwhile, the Tottos had moved to Sun Prairie, where the census revealed that their farm was larger and more abundant than the neighboring O'Keeffe property. But farming in the harsh midwestern climate proved too difficult for George and Isabel. In the s Totto gave up and returned to Hungary, supposedly to claim his share of the family fortune.

Totto may have visited his family in Wisconsin again, but he eventually died in his homeland, still worshiped, in absentia, by his daughters. Left to fend for themselves, Isabel and her six sons and daughters moved to nearby Madison in the early s. The town had been a high-brow university town for more than o keeffe georgia biography books years, and she must have imagined that it held better prospects for her children.

Jump to ratings and reviews. Want to read. Rate this book. Laurie Lisle. The woman who emerges has extraordinary personal stature, artistic gifts, commitment to her vision. Her vivid visual vocabulary—sensuous flowers, bleached bones against red sky and earth—had a stunning, profound, and lasting influence on American art in this century. Portrait of an Artist is an in-depth account of her exceptional life—from her girlhood and early days as a controversial art teacher, to her discovery by the pioneering photographer of the New York avant-garde, Alfred Stieglitz, to her seclusion in the New Mexico desert where she lived until her death.

Her dazzling career spans virtually the entire history of modern art in America. Armed with passion, steadfastness, and three years poring over research, former Newsweek reporter Laurie Lisle finally shines a light on one of the most significant and innovative twentieth century artists. Loading interface About the author. Laurie Lisle 7 books 58 followers.

Publisher Weekly's BookLife says "it pulses with intellectual discussions, lived feminist history and its resultant tensions…It's great for fans of Vivian Gornick's Fierce Attachments and Rebecca Solnit's Recollections of My Nonexistence. Her best-selling biography of O'Keeffe, Portrait of an Artist, first published inhas been translated into six languages.

Her biography about sculptor Louise Nevelson, known for her dramatic black walls and assemblages, is titled Louise Nevelson: A Passionate Life. She has also written books about childlessness, gardening, and the small girls' high school, where she decided to become a writer. Laurie lives in the village of Sharon, Connecticut with her husband, artist Robert Kipniss.

When she is not writing or reading, she is hiking or working in her flower garden. Write a Review. Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book! Community Reviews. Search review text. Displaying 1 - 30 of reviews. I'm no great reader of biographies. I tend to find them lackluster with their cradle-to-grave narrative arc and cheap psychologizing.

But this particular work is terrific. It's insightful. We see how Georgia O'Keeffe's talent developed early in life. In Georgia and her many sisters were driven some miles in a horse and buggy from their Wisconsin farm to art lessons, an almost unheard of extravagance in those still largely frontier days. She becomes a most unorthodox teacher of art in Virginia and, later, Texas.

It is while there, in West Texas, that she discovers Big Sky country, the American southwest, whose strange beauty was to possess her for the rest of her life. But between the Texas teaching and the full-time move to New Mexico there was an interval in New York when she was discovered by Alfred Stieglitz, the photographer and gallerist, who championed her, scandalously left his wife and married her, a woman 25 years younger than himself.

For about twenty years she lives with the garrulous Stieglitz in New York. In the spring and summer they shift activities to the Stieglitz family compound upstate on Lake George. Here the great man is surrounded by his large family and circle of admirers. For Georgia, the East ultimately comes to seem a dead place. She yearns for the desert southwest.

A change is made. Instead of going to Lake George for the summer, she will go to New Mexico, where she will paint prolifically. She was virtually blocked in the East. There she discovers Ghost Ranch, and a few years later the house at Abiquiu. Steiglitz doesn't like the arrangement but he knows she will not paint otherwise, so her lets her go.

The arrangement continues until his death inwhen, after three years spent settling his estate, she moves west full time. In the s, the heyday of Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art, she undergoes a ludicrous fall from critical favor. The absurd interpretations by the critics of the day are well represented, and hilarious they are too for being so fantastically off the mark.

In the early s she is justly returned to her proper status with a series of big shows in major U. I found her will an astonishing thing to contemplate. Unlike most people, and this was her greatest gift in my view, perhaps greater than her artistic mastery, she knew what she wanted from life, almost from day one, and she doggedly went out and got it.

This focus is at the core of her spare way of life and stripped down esthetic. Most of all she had this immense appetite for solitude. For most of us, with our various codependencies, that's hard to imagine. But it was fascinating to see it manifest in the life of this woman whose character seems set from the moment of birth. She is an astonishing historical figure largely because of her output of a timeless body of art which has defied all critical reductions.

The author has done an excellent job. The biography's far more penetrating than I had thought it could be. And this is done for the most part by showing and quotation, not by that awful sort of psychologizing that is actually a projection of the writer's own wishes. Warmly recommended. As a biographer, Laurie Lisle can be informative, enlightening, and engaging—though almost never all at the same time.

Her composition, as good as it is, left me with half as many questions as answers. The End. I had the sense that this biographical endeavor had taken an exhausting toll on her and she was anxious to put it behind her. This explains the oddly abrupt final chapter and why, in the interest of fairness, I have bumped up my rating to four stars.

Lin Ennis. This is one of the two biographies recommended to docents at the O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe--the less technical one, according to the gift shop assistant who helped me select one. I chose "less technical" because I wanted a fast read--and it was, because Georgia O'Keeffe was such an interesting person. I deducted one star because the writing style is not exceptional.

The writer was too much in the way, creating the feeling of being told only what the writer found out. Of course, one wants the truth, but somehow this seemed taped together. Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed reading about O'Keeffe and learning more about her. Reading most of it while I was in the impressive landscape of Santa Fe itself made O'Keeffe feel more "present.

Much has been said about O'Keeffe's brusque personality, and this book, too, presents more of that than any softer side or even romance. I was under the impression O'Keeffe had lovers besides Steiglitz, at least after his death, and perhaps shortly after she moved to New Mexico. This volume says nothing about that, so I don't know more than the vague impressions I've gathered over the years.

Regarding her apparent harshness, I suspect some of it was her mischievous sense of humor misunderstood or misinterpreted by those around her. In school, she was quite the life of the party; though, she was careful not to get caught purveying trouble. It's possible that in mid- and later-life, she was still not "caught" being mischievous with a remark, such as when someone appeared at her gate asking to see her and O'Keeffe said, "Front side," then turned and said "Back side.

Perhaps a more specific request would have garnered a different answer. Most important to O'Keeffe was painting and Portrait of an Artist treats her style and development thoroughly. She was aware her success created expectations that each year's show would surpass the last. Usually that happened through her normal process of pushing herself to her limits, but in later years it added stress.

Like great comedians or musicians, she became an "overnight success" by honing her craft and getting better at it day after day, year after year. Without seeing her paintings chronologically, what exactly she did to improve escapes me, but such changes are mentioned in this tome. It is a landmark in my long life of good reading. For anyone interested in the dynamics of love relationships,this is a cornucopia.

Anyone who can take on this kind of project has my complete trust in matters of the heart and mind. So many have nearly drowned in the flowing red rivers of love betrayed, lost, neglected, abandoned To illustrate, an excerpt from a letter by O'K to her close friend Jean Toomer, after a particularly painful episode with her husband Alfred Steiglitz : "If the past year has taught me anything it is that my plot of earth must be tended with absurd care -- By myself first -- and if second by someone else, it must be with absolute trust -- their thinking carefully and knowing what they do -- It seems it would be very difficult for me to live if it were wrecked again.

Redemption comes in the choices O'Keeffe makes to "absurdly care for" her plot of earth, not only for herself but for her marriage as well. That she should have gradually removed herself from society, especially after the death of Steiglitz There is treasure in every exquisitely chosen word and impression. To a point where I, who generally rush to the photographs and illustrations in a biography, forgot to be disappointed in their small number and poor quality; easily forgiven,I can find them elsewhere.

Thank you, Roxana Robinson, for this amazing work of immensity. My book club and I o keeffe georgia biography books it because of our dual interest in women artists in the Southwest where Georgia lived for the last part of her life and because of our interest in the artist and her works. There is a strong, well-researched narrative flow that makes for compelling reading.

O'Keefe's personal life and artistic life were strongly interwoven, and the story captures that interaction well. My one complaint is that there were very few pictures, and all were in black and white, with poor resolution. Given the amount of time the author spends describing paintings, I would have preferred to see what she was describing.

Even a chronological list of O'Keefe's paintings would have helped me look up the paintings in other books. Still, I heartily recommend this book for anyone with an interest in Georgia O'Keefe's life and the work it produced. It made for excellent book club discussion, as well. Very well written and a joy to read. I learned so much and translated it into my own artistic practice : This biography gives one a good understanding of how she persisted in the male dominated world of art and succeeded!!!!

One person found this helpful. This was an extraordinary look at an extraordinary woman who lived during extraordinary times. A book about women's rights as well as a book about an extraordinary artist.

O keeffe georgia biography books: This new edition features a new

I wish there had been pictures, but I enjoyed looking them up as each was described in the book, and having them right there on my smart phone to compare to the descriptions. This book made me wish that I had somehow managed to meet this icon of modern art. It made a trip to New Mexico to a museum where her paintings are displayed an item on my bucket list.

This book is highly recommended even to those who up to now have had only a minimal interest in modern art. Fact based, methodical, for someone like me who is interested in O'Keefe and her New Mexico life and art, but not obsessed, it was good enough to hold my interest through the slower parts. I learned a lot and enjoyed the meticulous research.

See more reviews. Top reviews from other countries. Super interesting and written with such detail. A must read. A really well-researched look at the long life and career of American artist Georgia O'Keeffe. However, there could have been some extensive pruning and the book would have been all the better for it. It's very slow and verbose in places.

I agree with other reviewers who have said that the inclusion of relevant photographs would have helped immensely. As it is, reading about unpleasant, difficult, self-absorbed people wears pretty thin after a while, and while some aspects of O'Keeffe's long life are interesting, there is just too much of the not-so interesting included in this book.

This is a pretty well faultless biography of the artist. Accurate, well-documented and evidenced, intelligent and readable, it does everything that could be asked of it. I had the paperback, and longed for colour illustrations, but that is a small quibble in an otherwise fine book. If you are going to read just one biography about Georgia O'keeffe, this is the one.