The subject of several plays, with a museum devoted to her work and one of her paintings reproduced on a postage stamp, Georgia O'Keeffe is the most famous American woman artist and an important pioneering modernist.

Although mostly associated with the desert Southwest, O'Keeffe was born near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. Having decided to become an artist at age nine, she was trained at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and New York's Art Students League. O'Keeffe supported herself as a freelance commercial artist for two years and then, from 1911 through 1918, taught at schools in Virginia, South Carolina, and Texas. During summer vacations, O'Keeffe took additional classes at the University of Virginia and Columbia University Teacher's College, where she was strongly influenced by the theories of Arthur Wesley Dow, who stressed the importance of developing one's personal style by paring forms down to their essences. In 1915 O'Keeffe destroyed her earlier work, and embarked on a series of spare, elegant, and extremely radical charcoal drawings and watercolors that led directly to experiments with total abstraction.

Thanks largely to the support of the New York photographer, editor, and art dealer Alfred Stieglitz, O'Keeffe moved to Manhattan in 1918 and established a successful career as a professional artist. Stieglitz featured her work in more than 20 solo shows. O'Keeffe attracted widespread critical attention for her huge paintings of flowers and sun-bleached animal bones. In 1924 O'Keeffe married Stieglitz. They lived in New York until his death 22 years later. It was only in 1949, at the age of 62, that O'Keeffe finally felt free to settle in New Mexico, which she had visited alone many times previously.

O'Keeffe's reputation increased exponentially thereafter. She won many awards, including medals from two U.S. presidents and 10 honorary doctorates. By the time of her death, O'Keeffe had become a legend.