Georgia O'Keeffe at the Sun Prairie Historical Library & Museum

Start your tour of "Georgia O'Keeffe’s Formative World" at the Sun Prairie Historical Library & Museum. A world-renowned artist, Georgia was born on a farm southeast of the current city center on November 15, 1887, and spent the first 14 years of her life in the Sun Prairie area. Called the "Mother of American modernism," O'Keeffe gained international recognition for her meticulous paintings of natural forms. She is best known for her flowers and desert-inspired landscapes, which were often drawn from and related to places and environments in which she lived.^[1]

The Museum houses an ongoing exhibit depicting Georgia’s time in Sun Prairie, including photos of her and various prints of her works. There is an “O’Keeffe original” at the museum, but it is the work of Georgia’s sister, Ida O’Keeffe, who was also an acclaimed artist, albeit less renowned. The Museum also sponsors the Georgia O’Keeffe Research Nook, where Museum visitors can review a curated collection of art catalogs, books, and in-house research related to O’Keeffe.

Georgia Totto O’Keeffe was born in 1887 on a farm in the town of Sun Prairie, roughly 3 miles southeast of Sun Prairie’s city center, to parents Francis and Ida (nee Totto) O’Keeffe. Georgia was the O’Keeffes’ second child, born two years after brother Francis O’Keeffe, Jr. The family would continue to grow in Sun Prairie with Georgia's younger brother Alexis (b. 1892), along with sisters Ida (b. 1889), Anita (b. 1892), Catherine (b. 1895) and Claudia (b. 1899).^[2]

Georgia’s mother, Ida, was the daughter of Hungarian Count George Totto who was exiled from Hungary after his participation in the 1848 revolution of Hungary against Austria. George arrived in New York where he met Charles Wyckoff and his daughter Isabella, descendants of the relatively well-known Dutch family of Pieter Wyckoff, who immigrated to New York in the late 1600s. Both Charles Wyckoff and George Totto later relocated to Wisconsin, where George married Isabella Wyckoff. The couple lived in Waunakee, then moved to Westport, where Ida Ten Eyck Totto was born in 1864 before settling on land in Sun Prairie by 1872.^[3]

Georgia’s father Francis was born in Sun Prairie in 1853 to Pierce and Catherine O’Keeffe, both immigrants from Ireland who arrived in the U.S. and bought land in Sun Prairie in 1848. The O’Keeffes had established a considerable farm and when Pierce died in 1869, Francis cut his education short and worked the farm with his two brothers. The land owned by the Tottos was adjacent to the O’Keeffe farm, so although Francis was some 11 years older than Ida, the two knew each other in their youth.

In 1876, Count George Totto returned to Hungary and never came back to the United States. Isabella stayed in Wisconsin and moved to Madison with her six children, including Ida. Isabella ran her household with a firm hand and a confident determination — traits that would be passed on to Georgia’s mother and eventually to Georgia.^[4] The Totto farmland was retained and rented to the neighboring O’Keeffes for Francis and his brothers to work. Thus, the Totto and O’Keeffe families remained connected and in 1883 Francis began courting Ida, leading to their marriage the following year. Francis and Ida settled on the land owned by the Tottos and built the home where Georgia was born. Georgia’s paternal grandmother, Catherine, continued to live in the original O’Keeffe farm just down the road.

^[1] Mintz Messinger, Lisa. Georgia O'Keeffe. Thames and Hudson and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1988, p. 8.

^[2] O’Keeffe Family: Georgia O’Keeffe’s ancestors, siblings and Sun Prairie relatives. Research compiled by Dee Theisen, Sun Prairie Historical Library and Museum, 2022.

^[3] Reily, Nancy Hopkins. Georgia O'Keeffe, a Private Friendship, Part 1 - Walking the Sun Prairie Land. Sunstone Press, Santa Fe, NM, 2007, p. 34. 

^[4] Burkhardt, Ellen. "Finding the Real Georgia O'Keeffe: Seeing the Famed Artist Through the Lens of Her Unassuming Wisconsin Hometown." Artful Living Magazine, Winter 2019.