Georgia O’Keeffe, a major contributor to modern art, fought hard to stay true to her vision. Realizing that much of her earlier work had been influenced by the expectations of others, she set it aside and began again, drawing only what was in her head that hadn’t been put down on paper, and in a way that nobody else taught her.

“I was taught to paint like other people and I knew that I'd never paint as well as the person that I was taught to paint like there was no reason why I should attempt to do it any better I hadn't been taught any way of my own”.

Inspired by Arthur Wesley Dow’s ideas about composition and the arrangement of shapes and colours, O’Keeffe developed a visual language rooted in the landscapes and natural forms around her. She experimented with scale, often returning to the same subjects and enlarging their details to get to the core of what she wanted to say.

Some of the ways she stayed true to her vision, allowing viewers to see the beauty she saw, included:

Go with your gut
When something felt right to her, she stuck to it. “When I got to New Mexico, I knew it was mine. As soon as I saw it that was my country I've never seen anything like it before but it fitted to me exactly like something that's in the air it's just different the sky is different the stars are different the wind is different”.

Give yourself challenges
When she explored her own way of drawing and painting, she told herself that she would only use charcoal until charcoal and black paint became insufficient to complete her idea.

Select, eliminate, and emphasize to uncover the essence of a painting
She painted the same thing several times, and then focused on a part of it, then focused on a smaller part of it, and then even smaller, until she got to its essence.

Do it anyway
When asked how she convinced her husband to allow her to spend her summers in New Mexico away from him, she replied: “Well listen, he didn't let me go, I just went. He was never convinced but I went I had to go”.

Keep at it, even if you don’t understand why you have to do it
“Success doesn’t come with painting one picture. It results from taking a certain definite line of action and staying with it.”