Georgia O'Keeffe Quotes - Page 3

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Art Bones Country Criticism Critics Desire Earth

I want real things ... music that makes holes in the sky.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Real, Sky, Want

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You are one of my nicest thoughts.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Roxana Robinson, Georgia O'Keeffe (1989). “Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life”, p.310, UPNE

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You get whatever accomplishment you are willing to declare.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Inspirational, Dream, Motivation

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Making your unknown known is the important thing - and keeping the unknown always beyond you - catching - crystalizing your simpler clearer vision of life - only to see it turn stale compared to what you vaguely feel ahead - that you must always keep working to grasp.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Vision, Important, Catching

Roxana Robinson, Georgia O'Keeffe (1989). “Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life”, p.256, UPNE

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My center does not come from my mind - it feels in me like a plot of warm moist well tilled earth with the sun shining hot on it... It seems I would rather feel starkly empty than let any thing be planted that cannot be tended to the fullest possibility of its growth.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Shining, Growth, Mind

Roxana Robinson, Georgia O'Keeffe (1989). “Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life”, p.399, UPNE

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My first memory is of the brightness of light — light all around.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Quilts, Memories, Light

"An enduring spirit: the art of Georgia O'Keeffe".

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I do not like the idea of happiness - it is too momentary - I would say that I was always busy and interested in something - interest has more meaning to me than the idea of happiness.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Happiness, Ideas, Busy

Georgia O'Keeffe, Clive Giboire (1990). “Lovingly, Georgia: the complete correspondence of Georgia O'Keeffe & Anita Pollitzer”, Touchstone Books

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I get out my work and have a show for myself before I have it publicly. I make up my own mind about it-how good or bad or indifferent it is. After that, the critics can write what they please. I have already settled it for myself so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Writing, Mind, Criticism

Georgia O'Keeffe (1977). “Georgia O'Keeffe”, Viking Pr

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A flower is relatively small... Still in a way-nobody sees a flower-so I said to myself-I'll paint it big.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Flower, Way, Paint

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I can't live where I want to, I can't go where I want to go, I can't do what I want to, I can't even say what I want to. I decided I was a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted to.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Stupid, Want, Fool

Roxana Robinson, Georgia O'Keeffe (1989). “Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life”, p.257, UPNE

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I hate flowers - I paint them because they're cheaper than models and they don't move.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Art, Hate, Flower

Quoted in N.Y. Herald Tribune, 18 Apr. 1954

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One day a hummingbird flew in-- It fluttered against the window til I got it down where I could reach it with an open umbrella-- --When I had it in my hand it was so small I couldn't believe I had it--but I could feel the intense life--so intense and so tiny-- ...You were like the humming bird to me... And I am rather inclined to feel that you and I know the best part of one another without spending much time together-- --It is not that I fear the knowing-- It is that I am at this moment willing to let you be what you are to me--it is beautiful and pure and very intensely alive.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Beautiful, Believe, Hands

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I look at my work and make up my mind about it. After that, neither flattery nor criticism matters to me.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Writing, Mind, Criticism

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When I think of death, I only regret that I will not be able to see this beautiful country anymore unless the Indians are right and my spirit will walk here after I'm gone.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Beautiful, Country, Regret

Maria Costantino, Georgia O'Keeffe (1994). “Georgia O'Keeffe”, Smithmark Pub

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It seems to me very important to the idea of democracy to the country and to the world eventually that all men and women stand equal under the sky.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Country, Men, Sky

Roxana Robinson, Georgia O'Keeffe (1989). “Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life”, p.508, UPNE

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One works because I suppose it is the most interesting thing one knows to do. The days one works are the best days. On the other days one is hurrying through the other things one imagines one has to do to keep one's life going.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Interesting, Imagine, Knows

Katherine Hoffman, Georgia O'Keeffe (1984). “An enduring spirit: the art of Georgia O'Keeffe”, Scarecrow Pr

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I often painted fragments of things because it seemed to make my statement as well as or better than the whole could.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Art, Flower, Fragments

Georgia O'Keeffe, Robert Pincus-Witten, Hirschl & Adler Galleries (1986). “Georgia O'Keeffe: selected paintings and works on paper : April 26 through June 6, 1986”, Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Incorporated

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That nervous energy that makes people like you and I want and go after everything in the world - bump our heads on all the hard walls and scratch our hands on all the briars - but it makes living great - doesn't it - I'm glad I want everything in the world - good and bad - bitter and sweet - I want it all and a lot of it too

Georgia O'Keeffe

Sweet, Wall, Ambition

Georgia O'Keeffe, Anita Pollitzer (1990). “Lovingly, Georgia: The Complete Correspondence of Georgia O'Keeffe and Anita Pollitzer”, Touchstone Books

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Art is a wicked thing. It is what we are.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Art, Wicked, Wicked Things

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In the evening I go up in the desert and spend hours watching the sun go down, just enjoying it, and every day I go out and watch it again. I draw some and there is a little painting and so the days go by.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Watches, Desert, Littles

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School and things that painters have taught me even keep me from painting as I want to. I decided I was a very stupid fool not to be at least paint as I wanted to and say what I wanted to when I painted as that seemed to be the only thing I could do that didn't concern anybody but myself. I found that I could say things with colour and shapes that I couldn't say in any other way things that I had no words for.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Stupid, School, Shapes

Foreword to the catalogue for the show at the Anderson Galleries in New York, 1926.

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I know I can not paint a flower, I can not paint the sun on the desert on a bright summer morning but maybe in terms of paint colour I can convey to you my experience of the flower or the experience that makes the flower of significance to me at that particular time.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Summer, Morning, Flower

Britta Benke, Georgia O'Keeffe (2000). “O'Keeffe”

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I'd been taught to paint like other people, and I thought, what's the use? I couldn't do any better than they, or even as well. I was just adding to the brushpile. So I quit.

Georgia O'Keeffe

People, Use, Taught

Georgia O'Keeffe, Barbara J. Bloemink, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art & Design (1995). “Georgia O'Keeffe: Canyon suite”, George Braziller

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I realized that I had things in my head not like what I had been taught - not like what I had seen - shapes and ideas so familiar to me that it hadn't occurred to me to put them down. I decided to stop painting, to put away everything I had done, and to start to say the things that were my own.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Ideas, Shapes, Taught

Georgia O'Keeffe, Doris Bry (1988). “Some Memories of Drawings”, Atlantis Editions Book

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The bones seem to cut sharply to the center of something that is keenly alive on the desert even tho' it is vast and empty and untouchable... and knows no kindness with all its beauty.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Beauty, Kindness, Cutting

Roxana Robinson, Georgia O'Keeffe (1989). “Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life”, p.365, UPNE

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Born: November 15, 1887
Died: March 6, 1986
Occupation: Artist
Cite this Page: Citation

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