Georgia O'Keeffe was born in Wisconsin on November 15, 1887.
She was born on a farm near Sun Prairie, a small community close to Madison. Her parents, Francis Calyxtus O'Keeffe and Ida Totto, raised seven children, and Georgia was the second oldest. Her rural childhood later became an important part of how biographers describe her interest in landscape and natural forms.
O'Keeffe did not remain in Wisconsin. She studied art in Chicago and New York, worked as an art teacher, and eventually became one of the best-known American modernists. Her career included abstract drawings, enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and paintings of the deserts of New Mexico.
A common mix-up is confusing her birthplace with New Mexico, where she lived for many years and where the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum is located. New Mexico was central to her mature career, but Wisconsin was her birth state.