GEORGIA O’KEEFFE 

A pioneer in early 20th-century American abstract painting, modern artist Georgia O’Keeffe drew upon inner perceptions of figures—the feeling of a skyscraper, a flower, or a landscape—to express pure emotion with paint. O’Keeffe’s sumptuous renderings of forms and places were seen as radical at the time, especially for a woman artist. By 1920, O’Keeffe had absorbed elements of the newly arrived European painting style of abstraction, Bauhaus design, and the deep tradition of American still life and landscape painting in her artistic practice. She would fearlessly search deep within herself to create an entirely original artistic style: expressive American abstracted landscapes and still-lifes that were close-up, personal, and filled with emotive pull. 

After many years living a more solitary life in the American Southwest, O’Keeffe’s abstractions became refined and spare, with less vested emotion. Her robust color palette and flowing forms gave way to crisp, sharp lines and strong color contrasts. In In the Patio IX, O’Keeffe reduces her patio in New Mexico down to what she felt to be its bare essence. Here, sharp edges of her home’s cool white stucco walls and its black, chevron-shaped shadow contrast with the vast blue sky.