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Ida O’Keeffe: A Chronology
Sue Canterbury (Editor)
Description: Ida O’Keeffe: Escaping Georgia’s Shadow
Ida O’Keeffe: Escaping Georgia’s Shadow
Ida O’Keeffe: A Chronology
Author
Sue Canterbury (Editor)
PublisherDallas Museum of Art
Copyright© 2018 Dallas Museum of Art
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-100085
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Ida O’Keeffe: A Chronology
Lea Stephenson
1889
October 23: Born in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin.
1898
Takes drawing lessons at home along with her sisters Georgia and Anita. They are driven once a month to Sun Prairie to take lessons from Sarah Mann, who teaches them to copy from the Prang series Text Books of Art Education.
1902
Attends, along with Anita, the Sacred Heart Academy outside Madison (Sinsinawa), Wisconsin, where arts education is emphasized.
1903
June 1903: The O’Keeffe family moves to Williamsburg, Virginia.
1903–1905
Whether Ida and Anita attend school is unknown. Possibly home-schooled. Georgia attends Chatham Episcopal Institute (now Chatham Hall).
1905–1908
Attends Chatham Episcopal Institute. At Chatham, her drawings are published in the yearbook. She is a member of the glee club, the tennis team, and the inaugural basketball team.
1907
Her father Francis O’Keeffe sells seven lots from the Williamsburg property to the Norfolk Presbytery for $700. The lots will become part of the campus for the Williamsburg Female Institute.
1908–1909
Francis O’Keeffe cannot afford to send Ida and Anita back to Chatham in the fall. They remain in Williamsburg and do not attend school.
Spring 1909: Mrs. O’Keeffe and daughters move to Charlottesville, Virginia. Francis O’Keeffe remains in Williamsburg to sell the house.
Summer 1909: Attends the University of Virginia (UVA), taking courses in Drawing 2: Advanced Drawing, Drawing 2 for Elementary Teachers, and Manual Training.
1909–1910
While her father tries to sell the house, Ida returns to Williamsburg and completes her senior year of high school at the Williamsburg Female Institute, probably as a day student.
Summer 1910: Attends UVA, taking courses in Sewing: Study of Fabrics, Rhetoric and Composition, and Woodworking for High Schoolers.
1910–1911
Assumes first teaching appointment at Appomattox Agricultural High School (63 miles south of Charlottesville), where she teaches art and drawing.
1911
Receives professional teaching certificate in drawing from UVA.
1912
With Anita, enrolls in summer classes at UVA. Ida attends a course called the Short Story.
July 26: Ida’s first published short story, “Burdensome Quarters,” appears in Daily Progress, a Charlottesville newspaper.
1912–1913
Teaches at Sperryville High School (50 miles from Charlottesville).
1913
Georgia teaches summer art classes at UVA, and Ida and Anita attend class.
1913–1917
Teaches drawing in elementary schools at unnamed schools in southwestern Virginia.
1916
May 2: Ida Totto O’Keeffe dies in Charlottesville. Ida makes final arrangements for her mother’s burial.
1917
Receives professional teaching certificate at UVA.
1918
April 2: Enters nursing program at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.
November 11: Francis O’Keeffe dies. Ida interrupts her studies and travels to Virginia to make final arrangements.
1921
March 22: Receives her nursing degree and serves as a gynecological nurse at Mount Sinai Hospital.
1921–1922
Teaches at Sperryville High School in Virginia.
Summer 1922: Visits Lake George, New York.
1923
Works as a nurse in New York City.
November: Visits Lake George.
1924
September–mid-November: Visits Lake George, where Alfred Stieglitz flirts with, teases, and photographs her.
September 6: The writer Paul Rosenfeld visits Lake George for a week, having just returned from Europe.
October 8–14: The sculptor Arnold Rönnebeck stays at the Hill, and Ida develops a strong romantic interest in him.
December 11: Georgia and Stieglitz marry.
1925
January–April: Becomes romantically involved with Rosenfeld, and he proposes marriage. She accepts, but breaks the engagement due to discovery of Rosenfeld’s ongoing love affairs.
April 1: Serves as a private nurse to Mr. C. Stoeckel in Norfolk, Connecticut, and begins to teach herself to paint with oils.
May 22: Ida’s poem “When ‘Tis Spring” is published in the Winsted Evening Citizen in Norfolk.
Summer: Rosenfeld is at the Hill writing a novel. In correspondence with Ida, Stieglitz withholds information about him and only invites her to Lake George at the end of October, after Rosenfeld has left.
Mid-October: Resigns her position caring for Stoeckel, chooses not to visit Lake George and instead goes to Bristol, Virginia, to stay with a friend, Maude Wolfe Gaut, and see her former beau, Mr. E. D. Jobe.
1926
Late June: Stieglitz is hospitalized with a kidney stone, and Ida’s prescription of a buttermilk regimen helps him avoid surgery. She goes to Lake George to help him convalesce.
First half of August: Spends time at Lake George, where she continues painting.
1927–1928
December 16, 1927–January 12, 1928: Debuts in a group exhibition curated by Georgia at the Opportunity Gallery, New York City, where she exhibits under the name Ida Ten Eyck.
Summer 1928: Georgia calls Ida to Lake George following Stieglitz’s angina attack.
1929
Georgia confides to Ida about her diagnosis of breast tumors.
Spring: Applies to Teachers College, Columbia University.
July–August: As a private nurse, Ida accompanies Mabel Dodge Luhan to Taos, New Mexico, following Luhan’s hysterectomy in Buffalo, New York.
September: Enters the School of Practical Arts, Teachers College, Columbia, as a non-matriculated student for the 1929–1930 academic year. She lives in Seth Low Hall (student housing) and lists her major as fine art.
October 29: Black Tuesday stock market crash precipitates the Great Depression.
1930
January 7: Death of brother Alexius O’Keeffe in New York.
Summer: Enrolls in Advanced Painting Out-of-Doors, Columbia.
1931
June 3: Receives B.S. in Fine Arts from the School of Practical Arts.
June: Takes Advanced Painting with Charles Martin in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
1931–1932
Continues Advanced Studio Work with Martin during the winter and spring sessions, when she likely develops her Lighthouse series.
1932
June 1: Receives M.A. in Fine Arts from the School of Practical Arts.
Summer: Travels to Tennessee to paint and look for a teaching position.
September: Writes musical pageant Sun Prairie, which adapts Wisconsin Native American melodies and tells the story of the pioneers of Sun Prairie.
1933
January: Exhibits at Madison Art Association with sister Catherine and debuts her Lighthouse series. Catherine opens a solo show in New York City at Delphic Studios.
February 1: Georgia admits herself to Doctors Hospital. She is treated for psychoneurosis (nervous breakdown).
March 24: Georgia is released from the hospital and leaves for Bermuda to recuperate.
March 27–April 9: Ida’s first solo show in New York City, at Delphic Studios.
May: Georgia returns to New York from Bermuda.
Summer: Visits Deer Isle, Maine.
1934
February 12–April 18: Creates five-panel polyptych God’s House, funded by the Public Works of Art Project. It is intended for the New York Public Library. She is paid $375.90.
Spring: Exhibits at Salons of America, Forum Gallery at Rockefeller Center, New York. Mrs. John D. Rockefeller (Abby Aldrich Rockefeller) purchases Ida’s monotype Mount Washington, on view at the exhibition.
September: Forest Indians, a supplementary reader for children written and illustrated by Ida, is published. She is paid $175.
1934–1935
Appointed to teach at the Valle Crucis School for Girls in northwestern North Carolina. During the course of the school year, Ida directs students in the creation of a three-by-two-hundred-foot mural depicting the history of the Valle Crucis Mission.
1935–1936
Assistant professor, Fine Arts Department at Athens College, Athens, Alabama (now Athens State University).
December 1935: Ida’s short story “Plenty o’ Game” is published in American Rifleman, illustrated with her monotypes.
July 6–August 15, 1936: Attends the Tercentenary Session of Harvard summer school with a Carnegie scholarship, under the auspices of the American Institute of Architects. She studies under Robert D. Field.
1936–1937
Art instructor, Cortland State Normal School, New York (now State University of New York College at Cortland).
June 1937: Ida’s article on monotypes appears in the journal Prints. Her monotype Mount Washington (1933) is the lead illustration.
June 21–July 30, 1937: Attends summer session at the University of Oregon, Eugene, with a Carnegie scholarship under the auspices of the American Institute of Architects.
September 1937–May 1938: Resides in New York City.
1938
Summer: Art instructor at Southwest Missouri State Teachers College, Springfield (now Missouri State University).
September 1: Departs Springfield for San Antonio, Texas.
Art instructor at Our Lady of the Lake College, San Antonio (now Our Lady of the Lake University).
September: Elected a member of Mary Bonner Graphic Arts Club (later the San Antonio Printmakers), exhibiting some of her etchings in the club’s inaugural exhibition (October 26–November 8).
1939
Fall: Visits her brother Francis and family in Havana. Returns by boat and arrives in New York on December 17, 1939.
1940
Private-duty day nurse to seven-year-old Katherine Becker at the Carlyle Hotel in New York City.
1941
January: Assumes duties as the art teacher for one semester in Mount Holly, New Jersey (public and Quaker schools).
May: Invited for September session at the Edward MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, but does not attend due to new teaching appointment in North Carolina.
1941–1942
Named founding director, Department of Arts and Crafts, Pembroke State College for Indians, Lumberton, North Carolina (now University of North Carolina–Pembroke).
Summer 1942: Works as a commercial draftsman at Douglas Aircraft in Southern California.
Fall 1942: Resigns position at Pembroke.
1943
Relocates to Whittier, California. Works briefly at Douglas Aircraft. Lives near Murphy Memorial Hospital, where she works intermittently as a nurse.
Becomes involved with the Whittier Art Association, continuing the relationship as an exhibitor, an association officer, and as a volunteer until 1960.
1946
March 18: Lectures at Whittier College on composition, abstract art, and dynamic symmetry.
1961
September 1: Suffers stroke at her sister Claudia’s home in Beverly Hills, California, and lapses into a coma.
September 27: Dies at age seventy-one at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Los Angeles. Claudia ships her cremated remains to Forest Hill Cemetery, Madison, Dane County, Wisconsin, for burial.
Ida O’Keeffe: A Chronology
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