Portrait of an Artist

Georgia O''Keeffe was one of the most original painters America has ever produced. Her vivid visual vocabulary—sensuous flowers, bleached bones against red sky and earth—has had a profound and lasting influence on American art in this century.

Renowned for her fierce independence, iron determination, and unique artistic vision, O''Keeffe had a personal mystique as intriguing and enduring as her bold, brilliant canvasses. Here is a full account of her exceptional life—from her girlhood and early days as a controversial art teacher, to her discovery by the pioneering photographer of the New York avant-garde Alfred Stieglitz, to her seclusion in the New Mexico desert, where she lived until her death. Here also is the story of a great romance—between the extraordinary painter and her much older mentor, lover, and husband, Stieglitz.