"Singing has always seemed to me the most perfect means of expression. Since I cannot sing, I paint."

- GEORGIA O'KEEFE

Mr. Stieglitz, I like what you wrote to me. Maybe I don't get exactly your meaning. But I like mine - like you liked your interpretation of my drawings. It was such a surprise to me that you saw them, and I am so glad they surprised you, and that they gave you joy.

I can't tell you how sorry I am that I can't talk to you, what I've been thinking surprises me so…has been so much fun…at times has hurt too, that it would be great to tell you. Some of the fields are green - very green - almost unbelievably green against the dark of the pine woods - and it's warm. The air feels warm and soft and lovely.

She was twenty-nine, a lonely, rawboned art teacher with straight black hair that she wore in a bun. The next year Stieglitz put her drawings on exhibition in New York. O'Keefe, who had traveled to Manhattan, stormed into the gallery to stop the show. Her abstractions, she explained, were a private matter which the public would find incomprehensible. Gently, Stieglitz asked whether she herself knew what they meant. O'Keefe turned her dark, level gaze on him: "Do you think I'm an idiot?" She established herself as a member of Stieglitz' group, and eight years later they were married.

Many art histories will inform their readers that O'Keefe is the best woman painter America has produced. Suffice it to say that she is arguably one of the greatest painters, if not the greatest painter, this country has produced. Her style, based on clean colors, sharp edges, and strong patterns, remains constant and relevant, even though her subject matter is extremely diverse. Her paintings always seem to offer the spontaneity of music, with line and color counting for much more than the bones, blossoms, barns, skyscrapers, clouds, crosses, and canyon walls she uses for lyrics.