ts interested. The Texan landscape was like nothing she had ever seen before, withskies and plains stretching out further than the mind could fathom. The places she saw inthe West inspired her, and she could never escape it for very long without feeling a strongsense of longing. It was from there that she drew most of the objects, images andmemories which she put in her paintings. She lived out west for a significant portion ofher life because things were simpler and most people did not ask too many questions. One of O’Keeffe’s friends from art school in New York City, Anna Pollitzer,became a link to a great change for Georgia. Pollitzer knew Alfred Stieglitz, a world-renowned photographer and proprietor of 291, a gallery in the city. In January of 1916,she received some drawings from O’Keeffe, who was out west. They so amazed Pollitzerthat she broke a promise and brought them to show to Stieglitz. He saw them as arevelation, and wanted to display them as soon as possible. O’Keeffe found out about theshow upon her return to New York City, and was enraged. She seemed to have aproblem with sharing her artwork with the general public, or anyone at all. Perhaps it wasbecause she put so much of herself into her drawings and paintings; her sexuality, herconfidence, fears, experiences, and hopes. Like it or not, she was propelled into themodern art world amongst other famous artists of her time: Marsden Hartley, ArthurDove, John Marin and others. These people were intellectuals, sometimes anarchists,feminists, homosexuals, but always “considering the latest topics of human discourse(Hogrefe 61).” It was in this context that O’Keeffe and Stieglitz got to know each other.Alfred Stieglitz was a much older man; many years Georgia’s senior. The artisthad said that the man fell in love with her drawings long before he met her. Stieglitz wasan unhappily married man, and his snobbish wi...
