The lecture will focus on O’Keeffe’s exposure to the early stages of the suffrage movement in New York, and her own willful determination to be treated as an equal in the art world. As women’s rights slowly developed in America from 1913 to the 1940s, her opinions on “the men” who dominated the art world were often critical. To be sure, her rise to fame was due to her unique gifts in painting nature, developing abstraction, and a talent for evocative motifs. She also benefited from early recognition by the gallerist and famous photographer, Alfred Stieglitz, who became her husband in 1924. Apart from the importance of women’s rights in her career, the talk will address her early training, from O’Keeffe’s life in art, including a deep interest in teaching, to her exploration of art forms that expressed affinity with the landscape, notably in Texas and later in the Southwest. Whether flowers, rocks, shells, skulls or abstracted form, O’Keeffe’s daring styles will be examined, against the backdrop of advances in women’s roles during her long life.
