Paint and Sip: Georgia O'Keeffe

Study and recreate Georgia O'Keeffe's famous Hibiscus and Plumeria with Walt Whitman Birthplace Association Director Caitlyn Shea as part of our Paint & Sip series. All supplies are included, as well as refreshments.

Georgia O’Keeffe is one of the most significant artists of the 20th century, renowned for her contribution to modern art. Born on November 15, 1887, Georgia Totto O’Keeffe grew up on a farm near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. By the time she graduated from high school in 1905, O’Keeffe had determined to make her way as an artist. She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Students League in New York, where she learned the techniques of traditional painting.

By the mid-1920s, O’Keeffe was recognized as one of America’s most important and successful artists, known for her paintings of New York skyscrapers—an essentially American symbol of modernity—as well as her equally radical depictions of flowers.

In 1929, a trip to New Mexico, where O'Keeffe would make her home in 1949, changed the direction of her art. She continued painting into her nineties.

At this workshop, attendees will be recreating O'Keeffe's 1939 painting Hibiscus with Plumeria. The story behind this work of art: O'Keeffe was given the opportunity to take an all-expenses paid trip to the state of Hawaii by the Dole Pineapple Company, in exchange for creating art for their advertising campaign. O'Keeffe created many paintings dedicated to the stunning natural beauty of the state, including Hibiscus with Plumeria. However, none of the twenty paintings she completed contained a single pineapple. O'Keeffe eventually painted the desired pineapple when Dole sent a sample of the fruit directly to her New York home.

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Host or Publisher Walt Whitman Birthplace Association