American modernist painter Georgia O’Keeffe is best known for her meticulously rendered, large-scale depictions of flowers and stark desert landscapes — Oriental Poppies, serene Calla Lilies, fiery Red Canna, deer skulls and wildflowers floating above the horizon.

A fiercely independent nonconformist, O’Keeffe created abstract distillations of natural forms that gained international recognition and confirmed her stature as one of the most significant artists of the 20th century. O’Keeffe took a personal and provocative approach to art, seeking to create an equivalent of what she felt she was looking at, rather than merely copying it.

In their gorgeous new picture book, Gifts from Georgia’s Garden: How Georgia O’Keeffe Nourished Her Art (Neal Porter/Holiday House, 2024), Lisa Robinson and Hadley Hooper focus on how O’Keeffe’s art-centric lifestyle as a sustainable gardener fed her muse and enabled her to flourish as a painter. Deeply inspired by place and environment, Georgia believed everything was art, and art was everything.

The book opens with Georgia at her easel, painting “flowers so lush and large they filled the canvas.” This microscopic perspective enabled the viewer to appreciate a flower’s minute details. She hoped to make people in the city slow down and take the time to really see the beauty that she saw.

But Georgia grew tired of New York and fled to New Mexico, where she felt free amidst its canyons, mesas and skyscapes. The scent of the soil reminded her of growing up on a farm in Wisconsin, where she had developed her “love of wide skies and sweeping vistas.”

The golden shimmer of a field of wheat;
rectangular rocks, twisted sticks, oval leaves;
barns with haylofts, windows, and doors.

Early on, she knew she wanted to become an artist.

In 1945, O’Keeffe purchased an old hacienda — her new home — in Abiquiú, and it was here, inside adobe walls, that she planted her garden. First it was a ring of fruit trees, then garden greens like lettuce, leeks, and chard.

To this palette of greens,
she added splashes of color --
crocuses, daffodils, irises,
lilacs, poppies, and hollyhocks.

As her seeds sprouted and her plants grew, Georgia painted, explored nearby villages, hills, and cliffs, and gathered rocks, skulls and bones. Then she painted some more.

And when her garden bloomed, she fed herself and her friends with its gifts: simple soups (minestrone, potato and leek), salads (watercress or beef and bean), and dinner dishes (tomato soufflé, green Chile enchiladas).

And there was dessert! Biscochitas (shortbread with cinnamon sugar), apple pie with pecans and whipped cream, pecan butterballs.

“Georgia’s creativity infused all aspects of her life.” Aside from cooking and gardening, she made her own clothes and decorated her home. She ground grain for bread and supported her community by buying locally and hiring others to help with her household.

The art of caretaking —
of her home and her garden —
nourished Georgia’s art-making.

Georgia’s deep reverence for nature organically evolved into a loving stewardship of the land, enabling her to thrive and meet the challenges of being a successful artist on her own terms at a time when males dominated the field.

Robinson’s spare lyrical text incorporates quotes from O’Keeffe herself, giving the narrative a sense of immediacy and a taste of the artist’s ethos: simplicity, clarity, purity.

Hadley Hooper’s stunning illustrations (traditional pen, paint and paper assembled digitally), beautifully reference O’Keeffe’s style and aesthetic. Hooper’s colors — whether the lush pinks, reds and golds of the flowers; or the rich blues and violets of the city, the verdant greens of Wisconsin farmland, or the warm rusts and vermillions of the Southwest, speak to O’Keeffe’s own use of intense saturated colors and her strong emotional connection to her surroundings.

Hooper also uses scale, perspective, and a blend of painterly spreads with drawn vignettes to brilliant effect. Love the inventive full-bleed spreads of floral bouquets framing drawn parts of the narrative, and the large pea vine arching across a double page spread juxtaposed with sequential insets showing Georgia’s activities. A fertile garden is the perfect metaphor for the evolution and blossoming of Georgia’s artwork — abundant, generous, unfettered.

My favorite spreads are the one of Georgia’s dinner table laden with her homemade dishes, and the one where she first thought about planting a garden of her own, her imagination vividly abloom. Breathtaking!

Before reading this picture book, I hadn’t known O’Keeffe was such an avid gardener. I do think young readers will enjoy seeing how some artists consider life itself a work of art. Where and how you live, how you move through the world all matter, as does having a degree of autonomy and creative freedom. Uncompromising, Georgia lived in a way that protected the integrity of her work.

She internalized the land, air, skies, light, and energy of her beloved New Mexico, thereby formulating a unique artistic vision. The joy and solace of gardening enabled her to cultivate a satisfying lifestyle harmonious with her creative psyche. Feed the body, feed the muse, feed the soul.

Interesting back matter includes notes about Georgia’s sustainable gardening practices, a list of sources, and a recipe for her Pecan Butterballs. (Note: I think there’s an error in the list of ingredients — only 1/4 cup flour to 1 cup butter and no sweetener? Georgia’s recipe card stipulates 1 cup butter, 2 cups flour and 1/4 cup honey, also in keeping with home cooks online who’ve made these cookies.)

In any case, don’t miss this thoughtfully executed, inspiring, informative, exquisitely designed picture book — a sheer delight and truly a feast for the eyes!

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GIFTS FROM GEORGIA’S GARDEN: How Georgia O’Keeffe Nourished Her Art
written by Lisa Robinson
illustrated by Hadley Hooper
published by Neal Porter Books/Holiday House (March 2024)
Picture Book Biography for ages 4-8, 40 pp.
**Starred Reviews** from Kirkus, Booklist, and Horn Book

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*Interiors from Gifts from Georgia’s Garden: How Georgia O’Keeffe Nourished Her Art. Text © 2024 by Lisa Robinson. Illustrations © 2024 by Hadley Hooper. Used with permission from Holiday House Publishing, Inc.

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