What inspired Georgia O'Keeffe to paint the kind of work that you take time to paint?

Answer 1

It was said that she got her inspiration from the desert she lived in.

she was also strongly influenced by the teaching of Arthur Wesley Dow.

For both influences Georgia gives two beautiful personal quotes; the huge landscape and Papa Dow (the Americain painter) who influenced her. Also Cézanne became important for her, later.

- Today I walked into the sunset - to mail some letters - … …But some way or other I didn't seem to like the redness much so after I mailed the letters I walked home - and kept walking - The Eastern sky was all grey blue - bunches of clouds - different kinds of clouds - sticking around everywhere and the whole thing - lit up - first in one place - then in another with flashes of lightning - sometimes just sheet lightning - and some times sheet lightning with a sharp bright zigzag flashing across it -. I walked out past the last house - past the last locust tree - and sat on the fence for a long time - looking - just looking at - the lightning - you see there was nothing but sky and flat prairie land - land that seems more like the ocean than anything else I know - There was a wonderful moon. Well I just sat there and had a great time by myself - Not even many night noises - just the wind -… …I wondered what you were doing - It is absurd the way I love this country - Then when I came back - it was funny - roads just shoot across blocks anywhere - all the houses looked alike - and I almost got lost - I had to laugh at myself - I couldn't tell which house was home - I am loving the plains more than ever it seems - and the SKY - Anita you have never seen SKY - it is wonderful.

* artist quotations from a letter to Anita Pollitzer, Canyon Texas, September 11, 1916; as quoted in "The Complete Correspondence of Georgia O'Keeffe & Anita Pollitzer", ed. Clive Giboire, Touchstone Book, Simon & Schuster Inc. New York 1990, p. 145 (art quotes, 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 Dowpainting his pretty colored canyons - it must have been a great temptation - no wonder he fell. Then the moon rose right up out opf 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. - then I came home - not sleepy so I made a pattern of some flowers I had picked - They were like waterlillies - white ones -with the quality of smoothness gone.

* artist quotations from a letter to Anita Pollitzer, Canyon Texas, September 11, 1916; as quoted in "The Complete Correspondence of Georgia O'Keeffe & Anita Pollitzer", ed. Clive Giboire, Touchstone Book, Simon & Schuster Inc. New York 1990, pp. 186, 187 (art quotes, Georgia O'Keeffe)