Georgia O'Keeffe in Texas: A Guide

by Paul H. Carlson, John T Becker

Overview

Georgia O'Keeffe, a superbly gifted American artist usually associated with New Mexico, spent nearly four years in Texas, most of them in the Panhandle. She taught art in the public schools of Amarillo for two years, 1912-1914, and headed the art department at West Texas Normal College (now West Texas A & M University) in Canyon from the fall of 1916 to early 1918. She then went for a few months to Waring, Texas, northwest of San Antonio.

There are scores of books on Georgia O'Keeffe. The books are of various lengths, covering her life, art, and influence on other artists; her time spent in New Mexico; and her relationship with and marriage to Alfred Stieglitz. By comparison, however, there is little on O'Keeffe's years in Texas.
 
Georgia O'Keeffe in Texas: A Guide is different from previous O'Keeffe studies, as it provides a short biography of O'Keeffe on the people and events that influenced her Texas years. The authors are neither artists nor professional art critics, but are historians of the American West who have an interest in Georgia O'Keeffe. They believe her years in Texas, especially the Texas Panhandle, were significant for her subsequent development as a thoroughly modern American artist. This book is designed to work as a guide to O'Keeffe's life and work in Texas, and reveals an even more fascinating figure in the process.

Front Cover Art Credit: Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, Texas

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781933337494
Publisher:	State House Press at The Texas Center-Schreiner University
Publication date:	12/10/2012
Pages:	150
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.33(d)
Age Range:	10 - 18 Years

About the Author

PAUL H. CARLSON is Professor Emeritus of History, Texas Tech University, and retired Director, The Texas Tech University Center for the Southwest. He has published several books and numerous articles, most of them dealing with West Texas. Carlson is an international speaker and a consultant for television productions related to history in the American West.

JOHN T. (JACK) BECKER is Subject Librarian, Texas Tech University Libraries. Becker demonstrates his passion for history through his various writings and speaking engagements.

Read an Excerpt

Aloof and private, O'Keeffe spent little time with other teachers outside the classroom. Her social life, such as it was, centered at the hotel, something of a rooming house run by a woman. she took her meals in the popular hotel dinning room where she enjoyed watching hungry cowboys from off the plains down two or three meals at one sitting. in the building's back rooms she played poker and dominoes with other hotel guests. But she spent much of her free time and many of her weekends taking long walks on the West Texas plains.

O'Keeffe loved the region. The flatness, the emptiness, the lightening-filled thunderstorms, and the wind of the High Plains thrilled her. She enjoyed the sense of loneliness that came with her long walks. She rode to Palo Duro Canyon, some twenty miles southeast of Amarillo, and there was impressed with the deep gorge's immensity and its alternating colors of various reds, pinks, and tans. The canyon's colors and the plains vastness provided inspiration for her art and perhaps for her teaching.

Table of Contents

List of Photos

List of Maps

Preface

Milestones

Biography

Amarillo, Canyon, and the Texas Panhandle

Sidebars

+Modern art

+Dow Method

+Leah Harris

+Paul strand

+Arthur Stieglitz & Georgia O'Keeffe

+Canyon Suite

The Influence of the Texas Panhandle on Georgia O'Keeffe, by John F. Matthews

List and Descriptions of O'Keeffe's Texas Art

Texas Gallery Exhibitions of O'Keeffe's Art

Bibliography

Index

Interviews

This book will be different from previous O'Keeffe studies, providing a short biography of O'Keeffe on the people and events that influenced her Texas years. We are neither artists nor professional art critics, but as historians of the American West who have an interest in Georgia O'Keeffe we think her years in Texas, especially the Texas panhandle, were significant for her subsequent development as a thoroughly modern American artist. The book is designed to work as a guide to O'Keeffe's life and work in Texas.