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In 1916, Georgia O'Keeffe joined the staff at West Texas State Normal College in Canyon, TX as the head of the Art Department. She continued to teach there until 1918.

Through a new donation, Le Mirage, West Texas State Normal College Yearbook, 1917, we can learn more about the school during the period in which O'Keeffe taught: her fellow educators, the students she taught, and the extracurricular activities available to students and staff. To read more about the yearbook, view the finding aid.

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Learn more about O'Keeffe's time in Texas through the below resources:

Georgia O'Keeffe's Wartime Texas Letters by Amy Von Lintel; Bonney MacDonald

ISBN: 9781623498498

Publication Date: 2020-03-31

In 1912, at age 24, Georgia O'Keeffe boarded a train in Virginia and headed west, to the prairies of the Texas Panhandle, to take a position as art teacher for the newly organized Amarillo Public Schools. Subsequently she would join the faculty at what was then West Texas State Normal College (now West Texas A&M University). Already a thoroughly independent-minded woman, she maintained an active correspondence with her future husband, photographer Alfred Stieglitz, and other friends back east during the years she lived in Texas. Amy Von Lintel brings to readers the collected O'Keeffe correspondence and added commentary and analysis, shining fresh light on a period of the artist's life she characterizes as "some of the least appreciated in the vast O'Keeffe scholarship," but also as "a time when she discovered her own voice as a young, successful, and independent woman . . . a dedicated faculty member at a brand-new college . . . a vibrant social butterfly . . . a progressive woman who spoke her mind and fought for her beliefs to be heard." Although selected paintings by O'Keeffe that support the narrative are featured, this work focuses on O'Keeffe's words. By doing so, Von Lintel aims to allow the artist's voice to "emerge as a powerful witness of her own life, but also of western America in a pivotal moment of its development." The result is an important new examination of one of our most beloved artists during a time when she was in the process of discovering her future identity.

Georgia O'Keeffe: Watercolors by Georgia O'Keeffe (Artist); Amy Von Lintel (Text by)

ISBN: 1942185049

Publication Date: 2016-06-28

Georgia O'Keeffe's turn toward abstraction: luscious watercolors of the Texan landscape and her own body Georgia O'Keeffe: Watercolors catalogues the first major exhibition of the nearly 50 watercolors created by O'Keeffe between 1916 and 1918, while she lived in Canyon, Texas. These years mark a period of radical innovation for the artist, during which she firmly established her commitment to abstraction. While her work in Texas is often understood as merely a prelude to her career in New York City, these watercolors and drawings mark a seminal stage in O'Keeffe's artistic formation, representing the pivotal intersection of her disciplined art practice and her allegiance to the revolutionary techniques of her mentor, Arthur Wesley Dow. O'Keeffe's watercolors explore the texture and landscape of the Texas desert and the artist's own body in an exceptionally fragile and sensitive medium, representing a substantial achievement in their own right. These early works also relate to O'Keeffe's large-scale oil paintings, which in their handling of color and texture in some ways seem to aspire to the condition of watercolor. Designed to emphasize direct contact with these beautiful works, Watercolors features full-scale color reproductions of the paintings, most of which are approximately 8x12 inches in scale, offering a powerful testament to the significance of the watercolors in O'Keeffe's creative evolution. Also included (in a wallet at the rear of the book) is a lengthy essay by Amy Von Lintel featuring archival photographs of O'Keeffe from these years. Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) is best known for her distinctive paintings of flowers and landscapes which applied a precise, often hard-edged abstract language to evocative natural forms. Dubbed the "mother of American modernism," O'Keeffe produced more than 1,000 artworks in a career of more than 60 years.

 

Timeline by Dr. Amy M. Von Lintel : Timeline focused on O'Keeffe's years spent in West Texas

Georgia O’Keeffe is well known for her paintings, but did you also know she created sculptures? O’Keeffe worked with Johnson Atelier Technical Institute of Sculpture to cast her swirling sculpture, Abstraction, in 1979-1980 as both 3-foot tall sculptures and 10-foot tall sculptures.

J. Seward Johnson Jr. founded the Johnson Atelier in 1974 as a casting and fabrication facility with an emphasis on education. As such, the institute had a robust apprenticeship program for hands-on learning as well as strong inclinations to experiment with new methods and techniques, working directly with sculptors to achieve their desired artistic outcome.

Two new donations to the archive, MS.65: Abstraction at Johnson Atelier and MS.67: Abstraction on Johnson Atelier Truck, include photographs of the unfinished sculptures at Johnson Atelier with the apprentices who worked on the sculptures as well as a photograph of O’Keeffe visiting the facility and a finished sculpture strapped in a truck bed for transportation. To learn more about these collections, view the finding aids for MS.65 and MS.67.

To explore O’Keeffe’s sculptures in the Museum’s art collection, see our Collections Online.

For additional information about O’Keeffe’s visit to Johnson Atelier, view the finding aid for a related collection, MS.15: Georgia O’Keeffe Abstraction Photographs, or see the images on our Collections Online.

Join the Engl Library and Archive throughout October as we celebrate American Archives Month, a time to raise awareness about the importance of historic documents and records, as well as the archivists who preserve and provide access to archival materials.

What are archives? An archive is a collection of historical records, in any format or media, preserved because of their continuing value. Learn more.

What are finding aids? A finding aid is a descriptive tool for discovering materials in and information about an archival collection. To view the finding aids for our archival collections, see the Archive Finding Aids Database.

All month long we'll be sharing archives news and featuring collections through the Engl Library and Archive news feed.

Have questions for the archivist or about archives or our collections? Please contact us by sending questions to library@okeeffemuseum.org.