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5/9

Art Institute of Chicago, 1943

  • Sarah Kelly Oehler, Art Institute of Chicago
Typewritten document. The press release heading is printed with red ink. The only legible line there reads, in the largest letters, 'News Release from the Art Institute of Chicago.' Below, a line in black, all caps reads, 'Three important exhibitions,' and then, a little farther down, 'Georgia O'Keeffe comes to Chicago.' Typewriter text fills the rest of the sheet. A 'note' near the top reads, 'A midwinter group of exhibitions opens January 21 in the East Wing Galleries headlined by the largest retrospective showing of Paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe ever held. Also included: Religious Folk Art of the Spanish Southwest: and Recent Acquisitions.' The body of the press release reads, 'Miss O’Keeffe, a former student of the school of the Art Institute, and at present the most famous woman painter in the world, is coming to Chicago to direct the installation of her exhibition and to be present at the opening. This is the first retrospective exhibition of her work to be shown in any museum. Sixty-one different pictures will trace the development of her art chronologically from 1916 until today. Born in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, Miss O’Keeffe has lived in Chicago, New York, Texas, and the Southwest. Her painting is noted for its luminous, unconventional color and its simplified imaginative use of form.' A subheading reads, also in all caps, 'O'Keeffe pictures bring extremely high prices.' Text continues, 'Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings command higher prices than those of any other living woman. As much as $10,000 has been paid for one painting by her, and this despite the fact that she is completely independent in her approach to her material. In 1923 she wrote the following: ‘One day seven years ago I found myself saying to myself – I can’t live where I want to – I can’t go where I want to – I can’t do what I want to – I can’t even say what I want to – . I decided I am a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted to.’' Creases where the sheet had been folded in thirds are visible.
Figure 1. Art Institute of Chicago press release, January 11, 1943.

In January 1943, Georgia O’Keeffe returned to Chicago. She had lived in the city in her early adulthood: first in 1905–6 when she studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and again, two years later, when she worked unhappily as a commercial illustrator before contracting measles, forcing her to quit the city. Her return to Chicago more than 30 years later, however, was far more triumphant.

The occasion was a momentous one. The Art Institute of Chicago was mounting Georgia O’Keeffe, Paintings, 1915-1941, a large-scale display of her artwork that marked several “firsts” for O’Keeffe in what was already a significant career: her first museum retrospective, far more comprehensive in breadth than her 1927 exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum of Art; her first solo exhibition to be held outside of New York City; and the largest gathering of her works since 1923 (figure 1).1 That it was held in the Midwestern metropolis she had once called home, not far from her birthplace in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, further enhanced its cachet. Although little noted in the scholarship on O’Keeffe—generally overshadowed by her 1946 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art—the Chicago exhibition established the canon of her work up until 1943, produced a catalogue that would become the defining statement of O’Keeffe’s early career, and reinvigorated her connections to Chicago. The exhibition would also influence O’Keeffe’s decisions regarding the estate of Alfred Stieglitz, the renowned photographer and art dealer, and also her husband, who died three years later, in 1946. Required to determine which institutions would receive his sizable collection of European and American art, O’Keeffe seized the opportunity to designate her own paintings—many of which were in the Art Institute show—as part of these donations.

Black and white photograph. A cleanshaven man wearing a suit and with a rounded face looks just off to our right with dark eyes in this portrait. His shoulders and face are angled to our right. He has a high forehead, low brows, and a rounded nose and chin. Light glints off his short, dark hair. He wears a suit jacket, a striped button-up shirt, and a diamond-patterned tie.
Figure 2. Daniel Catton Rich, 1939.

The Chicago exhibition originated thanks to the discerning eye of Daniel Catton Rich, director of the Art Institute (figure 2).2 Rich and O’Keeffe met in 1929, when both were guests of Mabel Dodge Luhan, the famed patron of the arts, at her home in Taos, New Mexico. At the time, Rich was the assistant curator of painting and sculptures at the Art Institute and was already familiar with O’Keeffe’s art thanks to Stieglitz’s exhibitions in the 1920s. He continued to follow her career from afar, and, in the spring of 1941, broached the possibility of an exhibition.3

From the beginning, Rich conceived of the show as a career-spanning exhibition that would demonstrate the beauty and range of her art to eager Chicago audiences. As he explained to O’Keeffe in a letter: “I have long admired your work and feel that a selection of it showing your changes and developments would be greatly appreciated by our public, already keenly aware of your place in American art.”4 O’Keeffe must have encouraged Stieglitz (in his role as her art dealer) to agree, as he wrote to her while she stayed at Ghost Ranch that summer: “I’m returning Mr. Rich’s letter. Thanks. Yes a show of yours properly selected will be an eye opener.”5 During trips to New York that fall and winter, O’Keeffe, Rich, and Stieglitz discussed the exhibition further, and agreed to two stipulations: that Rich would allow O’Keeffe to install the exhibition herself, and that the Art Institute would acquire a major work from the show.6

O’Keeffe arrived in Chicago on Monday, January 11, 1943, and checked into the Blackstone Hotel, located on Michigan Avenue several blocks south of the Art Institute. The next few days were a whirlwind of press interviews and gallery installations as O’Keeffe and Rich prepared for the exhibition’s scheduled opening on Thursday, January 21. O’Keeffe threw herself into hanging the exhibition, an activity that fascinated reporters unused to a woman so rigorously attending to such matters:

With Miss O’Keeffe . . . the hanging of a picture is as important as its painting. She is a slight, wiry little woman with a face of exquisite, coinlike beauty, done almost in pale sepia, and brown hair wound in a coronet, but she lugged her heavy paintings, in their frames of copper and stainless steel, like an automaton. Before she was thru, of course, she had Daniel Catton Rich, Institute director, discarding his jacket and racing around in a yellow sweater and maroon tie to help; and before she was really thru, she was in bed with the flu.7

Handwritten letter. The letterhead at the top center of the sheet shows a rooster standing atop a crest, with three smaller roosters in a row within. Beneath the shield-shaped crest is a banner that reads, 'The Blackstone.' Under that is printed, 'Chicago' O’Keeffe’s pencil-written letter is below. Her writing is a little choppy with pronounced loops for lowercase letters h, l, and d. Text reads, 'Another day gone – it is Friday night I’ve been up most of the day – wanted to go out but didn’t – I even put a dress on – Maria came for an hour this morning and again at 5 – for supper and left a little after 8 – Narcissa came for half an hour with her husband this evening – Maria says there must have been over 400 people there today – they all agree that everyone feels it'.
Figure 3. Georgia O’Keeffe to Alfred Stieglitz, January 23, 1943. Letters to Alfred Stieglitz, MS.9. Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. View on the O’Keeffe Museum website.

Indeed, O’Keeffe retreated to the Blackstone Hotel to recuperate after three days of installation, but not before insisting that the Art Institute repaint the largest of the three galleries—reportedly a violet color—which resulted in two white rooms and one in a greenish-gray hue.8

The exhibition included 61 works, all lent through Stieglitz’s An American Place gallery.9 As the chronologically arranged catalogue demonstrates, they ranged from early career works to her most recent canvases, starting with two drawings of around 1915–17: the watercolor Blue Lines X / Blue Lines and an untitled charcoal drawing (Drawing XIII / No. 13. Special) (figures 4–5). These were also the only two works on paper selected for inclusion.10 The latest paintings shown were Red Hills and Bones and Turkey Feathers and Indian Pot, two oils of 1941 (figures 6–7).11 In its scope, the display differed from all her past exhibitions, whether at Stieglitz’s galleries or the Brooklyn Museum, in that it featured more than 25 years of work. The retrospective revealed an expanded view of O’Keeffe’s work in other ways too: It demonstrated her varied subject matter, from abstract motifs to flowers and other natural forms to the stunning Southwestern landscape. It showcased the many locations she had visited or called home that inspired her creativity, including Lake George, Manhattan, New Mexico, and Canada. And it revealed her deployment of a dramatic range of canvas sizes as well as her penchant for working through certain motifs in multiple compositions.

Watercolor. Two slender lines with tapering, sharply pointed tips extend up from a pool of ink blue in this abstract vertical painting on bone-white paper. A broad smudge of dark blue spans most of the bottom edge of the sheet. The two lines emerge close together from just right of center. The line on the left stretches about two-thirds of the way up the sheet before angling downward, and then back up in a sideways z-shaped zigzag. The vertical line next to it nearly reaches the top edge of the sheet. Both swell and then taper back down near their tips.
Figure 4. Georgia O’Keeffe. Blue Lines X / Blue Lines, 1916. Watercolor and graphite on paper, 25 x 19 in. Metropolitan Museum of Art, Alfred Stieglitz Collection. View on the Met Museum website.
Charcoal drawing. Jagged forms, long, bulb-like shapes, and wavy lines are layered up along the center of this cream-white paper in this vertical drawing. A zig-zagging line to our left is filled in with solid medium gray to make a serrated form. Four tall, finger-like mounds clustered next to it, to our right, are darker, almost black. Some strokes of charcoal are visible, especially on the shape closest to us. Wavy lines create an outline for a form like a river to our right, which is shaded lightly but mostly white. The paper is smudged around the collection of forms.
Figure 5. Georgia O’Keeffe. Drawing XIII, 1915 / No. 13, Special, 1916. Charcoal on paper, 24 3/8 x 18 1/2 in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Alfred Stieglitz Collection. View on the Met Museum website.
Painting. Rust-red, barren hills fill most of this picture. Two dried bones span the bottom edge of the painting close to us, and goldenrod-yellow cliffs fill in the background. A thick, long bone with curved ends sits to our left, just in front of a spine with ten vertebrae. They sit on a low, wine-red hill. The valley leading back to the hill beyond is carpeted in patches of sky blue, white, and pale green. That hill takes up about two-thirds of the picture. Its smooth surface is lined with crevices, and there is a band of lighter orange near the bottom. In the top quarter of the composition, loosely painted strokes of deep yellow, coral pink, lilac purple, terracotta orange, and a few touches of pale turquoise suggest more rocky outcroppings and cliffs.
Figure 6. Georgia O’Keeffe. Red Hills and Bones, 1941. Oil on canvas, 29 3/4 x 40 in. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Alfred Stieglitz Collection. View on the PMA website.
Painting. A shiny, round-bellied black vase holds three feathers striped with brown, black, and white, all against a sand-brown background. Light glints off the round body of the vase, which takes up two-thirds the height of this painting. Only the white tip of one feather pokes over the top edge of the vase. More of the light brown and black stripes are visible on the two feathers behind it. A triangular form in the lower right corner and a vertical band running up the canvas, about a quarter of the way in from the right edge, suggest that the vase is tucked into a niche or the corner of a wall.
Figure 7. Georgia O’Keeffe. Turkey Feathers and Indian Pot, 1941. Oil on canvas. Private Collection.

This diversity was highlighted in the way O’Keeffe chose to display her art; as three archival photographs of the galleries (figures 8–10) demonstrate, O’Keeffe hung the works based on her own logic and aesthetic preferences. Rather than segregating her painting into discrete categories, she deliberately juxtaposed works of different subjects, decades, and locations. For example, in the small white room, she placed Black Iris (1926), an enlarged flower painting, on a wall adjacent to Dark Mesa with Pink Sky (1930) and Black Cross, New Mexico / Black Cross (1929), allowing their formal structures and color schemes to resonate.12 She also embraced the scale differences between her paintings: on the other side of the gallery she positioned East River from the 30th Story of Shelton Hotel (1928)—one of the largest formats used by O’Keeffe at the time, at 30 inches high by 48 inches wide—next to the relatively diminutive Red Poppy (1928), measuring seven by nine inches.13 Two large abstract works, Abstraction (1926) and From the Lake No. 3 (1924), can be seen adjacent to Red Poppy, further underscoring the variations among theme and size in her oeuvre.14 O’Keeffe did, however, opt to display all six of the Jack-in-the-Pulpit canvases (1930) on one wall of the large white gallery, encouraging visitors to discern for themselves how she used a single motif to experiment with color, form, and scale.15

Black and white photograph. Eleven widely spaced paintings line the walls of a long room in this installation view. Through a squared opening at the end of the room opposite us, at least three more doorways telescope into the distance, ending in a flat wall at the far end of the building. The room we are in has a double-sided wooden bench at the center beneath a grid of lights above, which reflects off the shiny dark floor. The paintings show flaring petals or antlers, or layers of geometric shapes.
Figure 8. Exhibition installation photo, Art Institute of Chicago, 1943.
Black and white photograph. We look into the far corner of a gallery space, with nine paintings lining the walls to either side of an opening, near the far corner. The paintings show flame-like petals, an animal skull, or abstracted, geometric shapes. The grid of lights above reflects in the dark, shiny floor below. In this view, we see three wooden benches placed along the perimeter of the room.
Figure 9. Exhibition installation photo, Art Institute of Chicago, 1943.
Black and white photograph. This room has an opening at the far end, and walls angle inward across the corners to either side of it. Ten paintings are hung along a textured wall that appears gray in this photograph. The paintings show abstracted or stylized trees, mountains, skulls, or layered shapes. With the grid of lights above and the dark floor below, we look into at least three more rooms, barely visible to either side of the nested doorways.
Figure 10. Exhibition installation photo, Art Institute of Chicago, 1943.

The exhibition was an opportunity for O’Keeffe, in collaboration with Rich, to establish the visual parameters of her career up until that point, and it revealed her preferences in exhibition display. But equally important was the essay Rich wrote for the catalogue, which would become the defining statement of O’Keeffe’s early career. Rich opened with an assertion that continues to resonate today: “The art of Georgia O’Keeffe is a record of intense emotional states resolved into crystalline form. Her ability to charge abstract elements of line, color, and mass with passionate meanings is as notable as her fastidious and immaculate craftsmanship.”16 The essay explored her life and career, touching on familiar milestones. These included her early schooling, her studies with Arthur Wesley Dow, and her teaching in Texas. It described her groundbreaking work with charcoals, and recounted the story of her friend Anita Pollitzer sharing them with Stieglitz. Finally, it detailed her partnership with Stieglitz and her 1929 trip to the Southwest. Indeed, as biographer Roxana Robinson has noted, Rich’s essay “contained the biographical structure of the O’Keeffe myth as it would be retold again and again.” Rich did not, however, only convey biographical facts; he also interwove a sensitive analysis of many of the paintings in the exhibition that undoubtedly developed from his conversations with the artist. Acknowledging that in her fifth decade O’Keeffe was “still at work with intense energy and what the next years will bring forth no one (not even herself) can foresee,” Rich ultimately concluded that “the place of Georgia O’Keeffe is secure” and that “American painting of our day is infinitely richer for her triumphant vision.”17

Black and white newspaper clipping. In this grainy image, O’Keeffe stands looking up at a painting of flame-like, flaring petals. The caption beneath reads, 'Georgia O'Keeffe and her 'Jack-in-the-Pulpit.'' An inset box at the top left reads, 'Dayton Ohio News Sunday February 21 1943.' O’Keeffe wears a black, long-sleeved dress and a black cap that covers her hair. Her features are indistinct in this blurry image but dark brows stand out on her high forehead. She has a long nose, and she smiles slightly. She rests the pinky edge of one hand along the side of the canvas.
Figure 11. Clipping from a Dayton, Ohio newspaper. Sunday, February 21, 1943.

Extensive newspaper coverage of the exhibition helped reinforce O’Keeffe’s reputation as one of the preeminent artists of the era. No doubt, the press’ fascination with the show related significantly to her status as a famed woman artist (figure 11). Reporters eagerly detailed the social events planned for O’Keeffe (which were truncated due to her illness) and commented on her outfits and appearance. But reviews of her paintings were positive, especially notable given that seemingly only four paintings by O’Keeffe had previously been seen in the city.18 “The three galleries glow with the clear, clean, luminous color of her [work],” said one critic, further noting the “combination of intense emotion, penetrative imagination, and great delicacy of feeling in her art.”19 Another author concluded, “If you like her work, you love it; if you don’t, you can’t forget it.”20 And significantly, the Associated Press released a lengthy piece on O’Keeffe and the exhibition by correspondent W. W. Hercher, who interviewed her on her first day in Chicago.21 His article, in which he described the show as “the artistic event of the first magnitude,” was syndicated widely and undoubtedly heightened her visibility throughout the nation.22

Painting. Most of this picture is taken up by a thick-armed, black cross. A stylized landscape beyond has densely packed, gray and brown hills leading back to a horizon lined with burnt orange and vivid yellow. The crossbeam sits just over the horizon, which comes halfway up the painting. Four round objects, presumably nail heads, are unevenly spaced on the crossing of the beams. The sky above the crossbeam, in the upper corners of the canvas, lightens from powder blue across the top to light yellow above the cross. A white circle near the upper right corner suggests a distant moon or bright star.
Figure 12. Georgia O’Keeffe. Black Cross, New Mexico / Black Cross, 1929. Oil on canvas, 39 x 30 in. Art Institute of Chicago. View on the AIC website.

The O’Keeffe retrospective thus had several important outcomes: it codified a desirable narrative of her art and work through Rich’s essay; it established a core group of important works; and it helped broaden her reputation. It also impacted the Art Institute’s collection as, true to their agreement, Rich purchased Black Cross, New Mexico from the show (figure 12). Heralded by the Chicago press, it was the first O’Keeffe painting to enter the permanent collection of the museum, and is a key example of the work she produced during her first summer in the Southwest.

The 1943 exhibition also directly influenced O’Keeffe’s subsequent decisions in placing the Alfred Stieglitz Collection in a variety of institutions. When her husband died in 1946, O’Keeffe had the overwhelming task of distributing his vast collection of American and European modernist paintings, drawings, and photographs, with major gifts going to the Art Institute of Chicago, Fisk University, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1949. O’Keeffe’s friendship with Daniel Catton Rich, as established through the 1943 show, played a significant role in this; he became one of her closest advisors regarding the Stieglitz Collection.23 Numerous letters between the two demonstrate the complexity of their work. In the process of organizing the dispersal of the Stieglitz Collection with Rich, O’Keeffe also made numerous gifts of her own paintings (often placing them on long-term loan to the institutions first), designating them as future acquisitions to the Stieglitz Collection. Of the 61 works chosen for the 1943 exhibition, 24 of them—or well over one-third—would later be donated to museums, including an additional six paintings given to the Art Institute between 1947 and 1987.

The 1943 retrospective at the Art Institute of Chicago was thus a major milestone for the artist. It presented key works from across her career, offering visitors a chance to understand and assess the development of her art. Rich’s essay enhanced this understanding with its sensitive analysis. The exhibition also introduced her work to audiences outside of New York City and brought her widespread visibility through local and syndicated press coverage. O’Keeffe and Rich’s fruitful collaboration would, however, have an even greater impact through her subsequent donation of works from the Stieglitz Collection. The added allocation of her own paintings amplified her consistent prominence on the walls of museums across the country, reinforcing the growth of her reputation as one of the central figures of American Modernism. The 1943 retrospective thus played a pivotal role as the artist began considering which paintings would become part of her enduring legacy.

Notes

Note on titles of works: Institutional titles and dates for O’Keeffe’s works sometimes vary from first titles and dates established by Georgia O’Keeffe: Catalogue Raisonné (1999), whose entries explain changes. Here institutional titles and dates are listed first followed by those in the Catalogue Raisonné.

  1. In 1923, Alfred Stieglitz organized Alfred Stieglitz Presents One Hundred Pictures: Oils, Water-colors, Pastels, Drawings, by Georgia O’Keeffe, American at Anderson Galleries in New York. ↩︎

  2. For information regarding Rich, see John W. Smith, “The Nervous Profession: Daniel Catton Rich and the Art Institute of Chicago, 1927-1958,” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 19, no. 1 (1993): 58–79, 105–7. ↩︎

  3. Rich recalled the circumstances of their 1929 meeting in Daniel Catton Rich, “I Met Her in Taos,” Worcester Sunday Telegram, October 30, 1960, 6–8. In this recollection he speculated that they met again in New York in 1942, but a letter from Rich to O’Keeffe in May 1941 demonstrates that they must have reconnected during the winter of 1940–41. Daniel Catton Rich to Georgia O’Keeffe, May 26, 1941, Alfred Stieglitz/Georgia O’Keeffe Archive, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (hereafter cited as YCAL), MSS 85, Box 179, folder 2973. Lisle cited the erroneous 1942 date in her biography; see Laurie Lisle, Portrait of an Artist: A Biography of Georgia O’Keeffe (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press), 251. ↩︎

  4. Daniel Catton Rich to Georgia O’Keeffe, May 26, 1941, YCAL, MSS 85, Box 179, folder 2973. ↩︎

  5. Alfred Stieglitz to Georgia O’Keeffe, June 2, 1941, YCAL, MSS 85, Box 76, folder 1602. ↩︎

  6. Lisle, Portrait of an Artist, 252. ↩︎

  7. Marcia Winn, “Front Views and Profiles: It’s a Personal Matter,” Chicago Tribune, January 22, 1943, 15. ↩︎

  8. Lisle, Portrait of an Artist, 252. Lisle indicates that the repainted gallery was originally violet; her source is not cited. O’Keeffe herself described the final colors in a letter to Stieglitz; see Georgia O’Keeffe to Alfred Stieglitz, January 19, 1943, YCAL, MSS 85, Box 93, folder 1838. ↩︎

  9. Daniel Catton Rich, Georgia O’Keeffe, Paintings 1915-1941, exh. cat. (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1943); see https://www.artic.edu/exhibitions/7588/retrospective-exhibition-of-paintings-by-georgia-o-keeffe. It must be noted that as a result of being supplied by An American Place in its entirety, the show, although representative, did not include any paintings previously sold by O’Keeffe. ↩︎

  10. Barbara Buhler Lynes, Georgia O’Keeffe: Catalogue Raisonné, 2 vols. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999), 1:64, 1:157. Although dated 1915 in the Art Institute’s catalogue, Blue Lines X is now dated to 1916. ↩︎

  11. Lynes, Georgia O’Keeffe, 2:1025, 2:1014. ↩︎

  12. Lynes, Georgia O’Keeffe, 1:557, 1:739, 1:667. ↩︎

  13. Lynes, Georgia O’Keeffe, 1:620, 1:594. ↩︎

  14. Lynes, Georgia O’Keeffe, 1:522, 1:471. ↩︎

  15. Lynes, Georgia O’Keeffe, 1:715–20. ↩︎

  16. Rich, Georgia O’Keeffe, 9. ↩︎

  17. Rich, Georgia O’Keeffe, 36, 40. ↩︎

  18. This was reported in Judith Cass, “Miss O’Keeffe’s Paintings to be on Exhibit Here,” Chicago Tribune, January 14, 1943, 11. ↩︎

  19. Edith Weigle, “Miss O’Keeffe’s Paintings Filled with Integrity,” Chicago Tribune, January 20, 1943, 9. ↩︎

  20. Marcia Winn, “Georgia O’Keeffe—Outstanding Artist,” Chicago Tribune, February 28, 1943, C4. ↩︎

  21. Georgia O’Keeffe to Alfred Stieglitz, January 14, 1943, YCAL, MSS 85, Box 93, folder 1838. ↩︎

  22. The Art Institute collected many of the syndicated stories from around the country, including as far away as Orlando, Florida; see Art Institute of Chicago Scrapbook, vol. 78, 1943, microfilm 1969 25, reel 13. For just one instance of the phrase “artistic event of the first magnitude,” see W. W. Hercher, “‘Greatest’ Woman Artist Opens Chicago Exhibition,” Telegraph Herald (Dubuque, Iowa), January 24, 1943, clipping, Art Institute of Chicago Scrapbook. ↩︎

  23. In 1943, likely to thank Rich personally, O’Keeffe gave him Red Poppy, one of the works in the exhibition; see Lynes, Georgia O’Keeffe, 1:594. ↩︎

Thoma Foundation Logo
Typewritten document. The press release heading is printed with red ink. The only legible line there reads, in the largest letters, 'News Release from the Art Institute of Chicago.' Below, a line in black, all caps reads, 'Three important exhibitions,' and then, a little farther down, 'Georgia O'Keeffe comes to Chicago.' Typewriter text fills the rest of the sheet. A 'note' near the top reads, 'A midwinter group of exhibitions opens January 21 in the East Wing Galleries headlined by the largest retrospective showing of Paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe ever held. Also included: Religious Folk Art of the Spanish Southwest: and Recent Acquisitions.' The body of the press release reads, 'Miss O’Keeffe, a former student of the school of the Art Institute, and at present the most famous woman painter in the world, is coming to Chicago to direct the installation of her exhibition and to be present at the opening. This is the first retrospective exhibition of her work to be shown in any museum. Sixty-one different pictures will trace the development of her art chronologically from 1916 until today. Born in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, Miss O’Keeffe has lived in Chicago, New York, Texas, and the Southwest. Her painting is noted for its luminous, unconventional color and its simplified imaginative use of form.' A subheading reads, also in all caps, 'O'Keeffe pictures bring extremely high prices.' Text continues, 'Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings command higher prices than those of any other living woman. As much as $10,000 has been paid for one painting by her, and this despite the fact that she is completely independent in her approach to her material. In 1923 she wrote the following: ‘One day seven years ago I found myself saying to myself – I can’t live where I want to – I can’t go where I want to – I can’t do what I want to – I can’t even say what I want to – . I decided I am a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted to.’' Creases where the sheet had been folded in thirds are visible.
Figure 1. Art Institute of Chicago press release, January 11, 1943.
Black and white photograph. A cleanshaven man wearing a suit and with a rounded face looks just off to our right with dark eyes in this portrait. His shoulders and face are angled to our right. He has a high forehead, low brows, and a rounded nose and chin. Light glints off his short, dark hair. He wears a suit jacket, a striped button-up shirt, and a diamond-patterned tie.
Figure 2. Daniel Catton Rich, 1939.
Handwritten letter. The letterhead at the top center of the sheet shows a rooster standing atop a crest, with three smaller roosters in a row within. Beneath the shield-shaped crest is a banner that reads, 'The Blackstone.' Under that is printed, 'Chicago' O’Keeffe’s pencil-written letter is below. Her writing is a little choppy with pronounced loops for lowercase letters h, l, and d. Text reads, 'Another day gone – it is Friday night I’ve been up most of the day – wanted to go out but didn’t – I even put a dress on – Maria came for an hour this morning and again at 5 – for supper and left a little after 8 – Narcissa came for half an hour with her husband this evening – Maria says there must have been over 400 people there today – they all agree that everyone feels it'.
Figure 3. Georgia O’Keeffe to Alfred Stieglitz, January 23, 1943. Letters to Alfred Stieglitz, MS.9. Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. View on the O’Keeffe Museum website.
Watercolor. Two slender lines with tapering, sharply pointed tips extend up from a pool of ink blue in this abstract vertical painting on bone-white paper. A broad smudge of dark blue spans most of the bottom edge of the sheet. The two lines emerge close together from just right of center. The line on the left stretches about two-thirds of the way up the sheet before angling downward, and then back up in a sideways z-shaped zigzag. The vertical line next to it nearly reaches the top edge of the sheet. Both swell and then taper back down near their tips.
Figure 4. Georgia O’Keeffe. Blue Lines X / Blue Lines, 1916. Watercolor and graphite on paper, 25 x 19 in. Metropolitan Museum of Art, Alfred Stieglitz Collection. View on the Met Museum website.
Charcoal drawing. Jagged forms, long, bulb-like shapes, and wavy lines are layered up along the center of this cream-white paper in this vertical drawing. A zig-zagging line to our left is filled in with solid medium gray to make a serrated form. Four tall, finger-like mounds clustered next to it, to our right, are darker, almost black. Some strokes of charcoal are visible, especially on the shape closest to us. Wavy lines create an outline for a form like a river to our right, which is shaded lightly but mostly white. The paper is smudged around the collection of forms.
Figure 5. Georgia O’Keeffe. Drawing XIII, 1915 / No. 13, Special, 1916. Charcoal on paper, 24 3/8 x 18 1/2 in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Alfred Stieglitz Collection. View on the Met Museum website.
Painting. Rust-red, barren hills fill most of this picture. Two dried bones span the bottom edge of the painting close to us, and goldenrod-yellow cliffs fill in the background. A thick, long bone with curved ends sits to our left, just in front of a spine with ten vertebrae. They sit on a low, wine-red hill. The valley leading back to the hill beyond is carpeted in patches of sky blue, white, and pale green. That hill takes up about two-thirds of the picture. Its smooth surface is lined with crevices, and there is a band of lighter orange near the bottom. In the top quarter of the composition, loosely painted strokes of deep yellow, coral pink, lilac purple, terracotta orange, and a few touches of pale turquoise suggest more rocky outcroppings and cliffs.
Figure 6. Georgia O’Keeffe. Red Hills and Bones, 1941. Oil on canvas, 29 3/4 x 40 in. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Alfred Stieglitz Collection. View on the PMA website.
Painting. A shiny, round-bellied black vase holds three feathers striped with brown, black, and white, all against a sand-brown background. Light glints off the round body of the vase, which takes up two-thirds the height of this painting. Only the white tip of one feather pokes over the top edge of the vase. More of the light brown and black stripes are visible on the two feathers behind it. A triangular form in the lower right corner and a vertical band running up the canvas, about a quarter of the way in from the right edge, suggest that the vase is tucked into a niche or the corner of a wall.
Figure 7. Georgia O’Keeffe. Turkey Feathers and Indian Pot, 1941. Oil on canvas. Private Collection.
Black and white photograph. Eleven widely spaced paintings line the walls of a long room in this installation view. Through a squared opening at the end of the room opposite us, at least three more doorways telescope into the distance, ending in a flat wall at the far end of the building. The room we are in has a double-sided wooden bench at the center beneath a grid of lights above, which reflects off the shiny dark floor. The paintings show flaring petals or antlers, or layers of geometric shapes.
Figure 8. Exhibition installation photo, Art Institute of Chicago, 1943.
Black and white photograph. We look into the far corner of a gallery space, with nine paintings lining the walls to either side of an opening, near the far corner. The paintings show flame-like petals, an animal skull, or abstracted, geometric shapes. The grid of lights above reflects in the dark, shiny floor below. In this view, we see three wooden benches placed along the perimeter of the room.
Figure 9. Exhibition installation photo, Art Institute of Chicago, 1943.
Black and white photograph. This room has an opening at the far end, and walls angle inward across the corners to either side of it. Ten paintings are hung along a textured wall that appears gray in this photograph. The paintings show abstracted or stylized trees, mountains, skulls, or layered shapes. With the grid of lights above and the dark floor below, we look into at least three more rooms, barely visible to either side of the nested doorways.
Figure 10. Exhibition installation photo, Art Institute of Chicago, 1943.
Black and white newspaper clipping. In this grainy image, O’Keeffe stands looking up at a painting of flame-like, flaring petals. The caption beneath reads, 'Georgia O'Keeffe and her 'Jack-in-the-Pulpit.'' An inset box at the top left reads, 'Dayton Ohio News Sunday February 21 1943.' O’Keeffe wears a black, long-sleeved dress and a black cap that covers her hair. Her features are indistinct in this blurry image but dark brows stand out on her high forehead. She has a long nose, and she smiles slightly. She rests the pinky edge of one hand along the side of the canvas.
Figure 11. Clipping from a Dayton, Ohio newspaper. Sunday, February 21, 1943.
Painting. Most of this picture is taken up by a thick-armed, black cross. A stylized landscape beyond has densely packed, gray and brown hills leading back to a horizon lined with burnt orange and vivid yellow. The crossbeam sits just over the horizon, which comes halfway up the painting. Four round objects, presumably nail heads, are unevenly spaced on the crossing of the beams. The sky above the crossbeam, in the upper corners of the canvas, lightens from powder blue across the top to light yellow above the cross. A white circle near the upper right corner suggests a distant moon or bright star.
Figure 12. Georgia O’Keeffe. Black Cross, New Mexico / Black Cross, 1929. Oil on canvas, 39 x 30 in. Art Institute of Chicago. View on the AIC website.
Black and white photograph. A woman, Georgia O’Keeffe, wears a dark hat and coat as she looks up and to our right, her hands gathered around the button on her high-necked collar at her throat. Her head and hands nearly fill the picture. She has dark eyes, a straight nose with a rounded end, and high cheekbones. Her mouth is closed, and her upper lip is darker than her full lower lip. The hat has a tall crown and short brim, and it comes down to her thick eyebrows and over her ears. The button of her high-collared coat shines as it catches the light. With the hand on our left, she creates an O with her forefinger and thumb as she pinches the button. Her other fingers curl in as her palm turns toward us, so her fingers resemble a cresting wave. The middle finger of that hand also touches the button, and those fingers curve toward her palm, which faces our left. Behind her is an abstract work showing a light-colored, rounded object within a darker field. The round area creates a kind of halo around her head. Her face and hands are slightly out of focus.
Alfred Stieglitz. Georgia O’Keeffe, 1918. Platinum print, 9 1/4 x 7 1/4 in. Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. Gift of The Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation. View on the O’Keeffe Museum website.
Black and white photograph. A white wall with Georgia O’Keeffe’s signature scrawled in black, oversized, cursive letters, takes up the left half of this image. The room beyond is hung with two paintings, and the sliver of an opening leading to another space is barely visible along the right edge. The letters of O’Keeffe’s name are rounded, with the lowercase g and f letters making spikes along its length. One painting in the background is lighter and shows stylized, curving forms; the other painting is dark and difficult to make out.
Figure 1. Installation view of the 1946 exhibition Georgia O’Keeffe at the Museum of Modern Art. Photographic Archive. The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York. IN319.1. Photograph by Soichi Sunami. View on the MoMA website.
Typewritten document. The cream-colored sheet has a press release heading typed in underlined all caps: 'Paintings of Georgia O'Keeffe shown in retrospective exhibition at Museum of Modern Art.' The paragraph below is headed with the text in quotation marks, 'Finally a woman on paper.' The paragraph beneath reads, 'These words, spoken by Alfred Stieglitz in 1915, were the actual launching of Georgia O’Keeffe on a career that has led to her recognition as a major American artist. On Wednesday, May 15, a retrospective exhibition of her works will open at the Museum of Modern Art and continue through August 25. The exhibition has been selected and installed by James Johnson Sweeney, Director of the Museum’s Department of Painting and Sculpture. Mr. Sweeney has also written the book on O’Keeffe which the Museum will publish concurrently with the exhibition.'
Figure 2. Museum of Modern Art press release (detail), 1946. Full version available for download from the MoMA website.
Handwritten letter. Text is written in grayed ink on cream-white paper, except for a line added near the top in what appears to be pencil. Between two inked lines, that added line reads, in quotes, ‘Finally a woman on paper’ – he said.' The visible text of the letter starts and ends mid-sentences. It reads: 'while before his lips opened – Then he smiled at me and yelled ‘Wolkomitz come here’ – Then he said to me ‘Why they’re genuinely fine things – you say a woman did these – she’s an unusual woman – She’s broad-minded, she’s bigger than most women, but she’s got the sensitive emotions – I’d know'.
Figure 3. Anita Pollitzer to Georgia O’Keeffe, December 31, 1915 (detail). Alfred Stieglitz/Georgia O’Keeffe Archive. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
Black and white photograph. We look slightly up at O’Keeffe as she stands swathed in a black coat or wrap, wearing a black hat pulled down to just above her brow, against a white, washed-out sky. Shown from the knees up, her body is angled to our right but she turns her face to us. She gazes down her long nose through narrowed eyes, off to our left. Lit from our right, sharp shadow defines the hollow under her high cheekbone on our left. Her lips are set in a line, and she seems to lean a little away from us. Her entire body is hidden behind her black garment. The light gray horizon comes about an eighth of the way up the composition, and the rest of the background is pale sky.
Figure 1. Alfred Stieglitz. Georgia O’Keeffe, 1920–22 . Gelatin silver print, 4 1/2 x 3 9/16 in. Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. Gift of The Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation. View on the O’Keeffe Museum website.
Painting. Rounded forms in cool mint and laurel green, topaz, and cobalt blue flare outward from a dark blue teardrop shape near the top center of this composition and envelop an inverted teardrop shape, in mauve pink, below the first. The rounded, flaring forms extend off all four sides of the composition. The dark blue teardrop is surrounded by a wide ring of aquamarine blue around the top that lightens to seafoam green below. Bands flare out and up, creating peaks to either side of this ring in the same jewel-toned greens and blues. Two larger forms swell out surround the pink teardrop below. A vertical line extends from the lower teardrop to the bottom edge of the painting, splitting the two forms there. Those forms have smaller lobes above the teardrop and are wider below, like bottom-heavy kidney beans. The areas closest to the pink teardrop are frosty green, darkening to spruce and teal green at the edges. Along the top of the composition, the background deepens from shell pink near the flower to dusky-rose pink at the edge. Darker pink fills in the lower corners. Brushstrokes are visible in some areas and more blended in others.
Figure 2. Georgia O’Keeffe. Series I White & Blue Flower Shapes, 1919. Oil on board, 19 7/8 x 15 3/4 in. Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. Gift of The Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation. View on the O’Keeffe Museum website.
Palladium print. O’Keeffe’s head is at the bottom center of this tall palladium print. In warm tones of golden brown and velvety black, she raises one hand high so it reaches into the upper right corner while the other hand is up near her face, both with palms out. O’Keeffe looks off to our left under dark brows. The outer corners of her eyes and lips turn slightly down. Tendons stand out in her neck, and her long dark hair extends off the bottom edge of the image. Her arm to our left curves up and over her head, dark hair visible in her armpit. That thumb may touch the work of art behind her, which shows a swirling form that grows up the composition in much the same shape as her arm. Her other hand is near her head, palm facing us, with that thumb close to or brushing that ear.
Figure 3. Alfred Stieglitz. Georgia O’Keeffe, 1918. Palladium print, 9 3/8 x 6 3/8 in. National Gallery of Art, Alfred Stieglitz Collection. View on the NGA website.
Charcoal drawing. Mostly short horizontal, vertical, and curving black lines interlock to make a mass that runs up the center of the composition, nearly filling the height of this tan-colored paper. A few longer diagonal lines bring the shapes together into an abstracted human form. Some cup-like lines could indicate the person’s head, shoulders, and breasts. Horizontal hatching and smudges fill in or outline the shapes throughout.
Figure 4. Pablo Picasso. Standing Female Nude, 1910. Charcoal on paper, 19 x 12 3/8 in. Collection The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Alfred Stieglitz Collection. © 2022 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. View on the Met Museum website.
Charcoal drawing. Jagged forms, long, bulb-like shapes, and wavy lines are layered up along the center of this cream-white paper in this vertical drawing. A zig-zagging line to our left is filled in with solid medium gray to make a serrated form. Four tall, finger-like mounds clustered next to it, to our right, are darker, almost black. Some strokes of charcoal are visible, especially on the shape closest to us. Wavy lines create an outline for a form like a river to our right, which is shaded lightly but mostly white. The paper is smudged around the collection of forms.
Figure 5. Georgia O’Keeffe. Drawing XIII, 1915 / No. 13, Special, 1916. Charcoal on paper, 24 3/8 × 18 1/2 in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Alfred Stieglitz Collection. View on the Met Museum website.
Painting. Two pieces of vivid green fruit sit in a burgundy-red basket, which hovers over or sits on a doily-like form against a carnation-pink field below. The painting is created with mostly flat areas of color, though there is some shading to create a sense of volume in the fruit and basket. The bottom ends of the shamrock-green pears face upward. They sit side-by-side in a long, narrow basket. The handle curves up from the narrow ends. The outside of the basket is dark red, the inside navy blue. A gray shape to our left could be a shadow cast by the basket. The area behind the basket is cream white but an underlayer of cobalt blue shows through in some of the more thinly painted areas. The doily beneath the basket has a scalloped edge. The pink surface below fills the bottom half of the painting and is mottled with a darker shade of pink in the bottom right corner and to our left of the doily.
Figure 6. Georgia O’Keeffe. Alligator Pear - No. 2, 1920–21. Oil on canvas, 23 1/4 x 18 in. Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. Gift of The Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation. View on the O’Keeffe Museum website.
Watercolor and drawing on paper. Paint is brushed, washed, and scrubbed on the paper in shades of moss and pine green, royal blue, mustard yellow, gray, and brown to create an abstracted view across a grassy ledge onto a body of water beyond. The scene is loosely painted so many details are difficult to make out. An outline of a charcoal-gray square tips into the scene from the bottom right corner, filling most of the paper’s height and width. The grassy hillside closest to us is painted in washes of golden yellow and sage green. It angles down to our left, where another area of peat brown outside the square could be a neighboring hill. A few caramel and tawny brown squiggles in the lower right corner of the watercolor could be an animal. Dark green trees line the hill to our right. Midnight blue, yellow, and brown squiggles to our left on the neighboring hill could be more trees. They are layered over areas of cobalt and topaz blue. The horizon is marked with a coral-red line, and the sky above, in the top fifth of the paper, is washes of pale blue, yellow, and dark gray. The artist signed and dated the bottom right corner, “Marin 22.”
Figure 7. John Marin. From Deer Isle, Maine, 1922. Watercolor, gouache, charcoal, and graphite on wove paper, 16 7/8 x 20 1/16 in. National Gallery of Art, Gift of John Marin Jr. View on the NGA website.
Black and white photograph. O’Keeffe sits on the deep ledge of a window opening and looks at us, one hand raised to the upturned collar of her shirt. The square window opening fills the top three-quarters of the picture, and glass-paned panels open toward us. On our side of the window, O’Keeffe sits on the sill, her crossed legs angled to our right, her back leaning against the left edge of the opening. She turns her oval face to look at us from the corners of her eyes. She pulls her chin back a bit, a faint smile on her lips. Her dark hair is swept loosely up, and it blends with the shadowy room behind her. Her black coat has round buttons down the front and is held loosely in place with a belt. Her long, dark skirt covers her legs to her ankles, above white socks and shoes. Her right hand, to our left and closer to us, rests in her lap. Her other hand is raised to the tall point of her upturned collar, by her left cheek.
Figure 1. Unknown photographer. Georgia O’Keeffe in Texas (detail), between 1912 and 1918. Georgia O’Keeffe Photographs, MS.37. Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. View on the O’Keeffe Museum website.
Painting. Three clusters of ash-brown and charcoal-gray, smooth, stylized tree trunks nearly fill this horizontal canvas. The ground below the trees is eggshell white, and blue sky fills in the top half. The surface of the trunks are smooth and curve gently, like bones. Their rounded bases are near the bottom edge of the canvas, and the trunks extend off the top edge. A cluster of three ash-brown trunks is to our left and a gray pair behind it at the center. One larger brown trunk to our right has a band of the white up the lower center, suggesting drifting snow. There are touches of muted brick red around the bottoms of the trunks.
Figure 2. Georgia O’Keeffe. Bare Tree Trunks with Snow, 1946. Oil on canvas, 29 1/2 x 39 1/2 in. Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas Art Association Purchase. View on the DMA website.
Painting. A single black line swells and tapers in curves across a white canvas like an uneven capital B. In the top left corner, the small top bulb of the B comes to a rounded tip pointing to our right. The second line takes up the vast majority of the composition. It stretches from near the top left corner all the way across to the center of the right edge. It then swells into a thicker line where it curves back toward the lower left corner.
Figure 3. Georgia O’Keeffe. Winter Road I, 1963. Oil on canvas, 22 x 18 inches. National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of The Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation. View on the NGA website.
Painting. A stylized landscape is made up of fog-gray, harvest-yellow, and rose-pink hills leading back to a flat-topped, black mesa in this long, horizontal painting. The gray, yellow, and pink hills take up about the bottom third of the composition. The black mesa takes up more than half the height of the canvas, and two crimson-red streaks rise up the right edge. The sky above is paper white.
Figure 4. Georgia O’Keeffe. Dark Mesa with Pink Sky, 1930. Oil on canvas, 16 x 29 7/8 inches. Amon Carter Museum of American Art. View on the Amon Carter website.
Painting. A peanut-brown, flat form spans most of this composition, except for a long, slender white triangle at the top left corner. A tall, narrow black rectangle near the lower left corner suggests a window opening in the side of a building. The brown wall is shaded darker to our left and lightens to tan across the face of the wall to our right. A darker brown strip along the right edge of the canvas suggests the turning of the corner of the building. The sky is washed-out white in the top left.
Figure 5. Georgia O’Keeffe. Black Patio Door, 1955. Oil on Canvas, 40 1/8 x 30 in. Amon Carter Museum of American Art. View on the Amon Carter website.
Watercolor. Washes in shades of blue and green create a curving, rainbow-like form against the beige of the paper in this vertical sheet. A band of sapphire blue across the bottom has a rounded bottom to create a long, cup-like form. A pale, honeydew-green band curves beneath it. Over the blue form, a light green mound creates the interior of the curving bands that then extend up like a rainbow. The bands deepen from pale green to sage, and then deeper, jewel-toned blues as they rise to the top of the sheet. A field of aquamarine-blue fills in the squared top of the sheet. The bands do not touch so the beige of the sheet shows through. Each band is mottled where the watercolor has feathered and pooled.
Figure 6. Georgia O’Keeffe. Light Coming on the Plains No. I, 1917. Watercolor on thin, beige, smooth wove paper and newsprint, 11 7/8 x 8 7/8 in. Amon Carter Museum of American Art. View on the Amon Carter website.
Watercolor. Arching washes of sky, royal, and navy blue blend to create a tall, egg-like shape on beige paper. A shallow, dish-like form of ultramarine blue runs across the bottom of the sheet. Above a narrow gap where the beige paper shows through, the tall form rises up into a dome. A pale glow at the bottom center of that form shifts to arctic blue and then deepens gradually to ultramarine around the top edge. Having worked wet-in-wet, the watercolor blends outward, like the rays of a rising sun. A few darker areas of blue are pooled around the top.
Figure 7. Georgia O’Keeffe. Light Coming on the Plains No. II / No. II Light Coming on the Plains, 1917. Watercolor on thin, beige, smooth wove paper and newsprint, 11 7/8 x 8 7/8 in. Amon Carter Museum of American Art. View on the Amon Carter website.
Watercolor. Here, the arching form of blended bands deepens from pale turquoise at the center to azure blue and then muted plum purple, again on beige-colored paper. The cup-like band across the bottom fades from royal blue to eggplant brown, then mint green. The blue and purple swirl together, especially across the top of the rounded form at the top of the page.
Figure 8. Georgia O’Keeffe. Light Coming on the Plains No. III / No. III Light Coming on the Plains, 1917. Watercolor on thin, beige, smooth wove paper and newsprint, 11 7/8 x 8 7/8 in. Amon Carter Museum of American Art. View on the Amon Carter website.
Watercolor. Warm orange and red rings surround a yellow ring near the upper left corner. The rest of the field is filled with pools of shades of lapis blue. The yellow circle is near the upper left corner. The white of the unpainted paper separates it from the clay-orange ring surrounding it, which is then encircled in a red ring. A tail-like line extends from the outer, red ring to stretch to the right edge of the paper. The blue paint of the sky touches the red ring along the left edge and near the red line so blue and red bleed together in those two areas. The blue areas are especially mottled with wet-on-wet blue pigment.
Figure 9. Georgia O’Keeffe. Evening Star No. V, 1917. Watercolor on paper, 8 5/8 x 11 5/8 in. McNay Art Museum, Bequest of Helen Miller Jones. View on the McNay website.
Watercolor. Clouds of white smoke highlighted with lemon yellow and shaded with delphinium blue billow out of an upside-down teardrop shape that could be a train on a track in this abstracted composition. The cloud takes up most of the top two-thirds of the vertical sheet. The teardrop shape, or train, is dark blue and has a yellow circle, presumably a headlight, is just to our left of center. Three lines emanate from the point of the train and extend to our left. One band is olive green, one is rust orange, and the third is royal blue. Washes of watercolor around the train and cloud lightens from violet across the top to pale slate blue along the bottom edge.
Figure 10. Georgia O’Keeffe. Train Coming in - Canyon, Texas / Train at Night in the Desert, 1916. Watercolor on paper, 9 3/4 x 8 1/4 in. Amarillo Museum of Art, Purchased with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, Amarillo Area Foundation, AMoA Alliance, Fannie Weymouth, Santa Fe Industries Foundation and Mary Fain.
Painting. A jagged, rounded form like a circular saw blade blends from honey and canary yellow to marigold orange and scarlet red in this long, horizontal painting. A band of brown along the bottom edge is topped by narrower bands of flame red and orange. The rest of the canvas is taken up with serrated bands of orange and yellow flaring off of a honey-yellow semicircle along the horizon. The semicircle is mottled with darker areas of pumpkin orange. The upper corners are vivid red.t
Figure 11. Georgia O’Keeffe. From the Plains I / From the Plains, 1953. Oil on canvas, 47 11/16 x 83 5/8 in. McNay Art Museum, Gift of the Estate of Tom Slick. View on the McNay website.
Painting. A white, dry goat’s skull sits on a sandy dune in the lower left corner of this vertical painting. Two dunes rise in the distance beyond, nearly filling the composition. The skull is painted parchment white shaded with pale lavender purple. An undefined, curling tuft near the head could be the remnants of the goat’s skin or fur. The skull is angled to our right, almost in profile. Sun washes the sandy area beyond the skull in golden yellow. The dune that curves up and to our right is darker, army brown. Another sunlit dune fills the top left corner. A sliver of pale pink sky stretches across the top edge of the canvas.
Figure 12. Georgia O’Keeffe. Goat’s Head, 1957. Oil on canvas, 20 x 16 in. McNay Art Museum, Gift of the Estate of Tom Slick. View on the McNay website.
Painting. Curving forms in pale peach, orange, eucalyptus green, fawn brown, mauve pink, and deep purple intertwine around an ear-like form, ridged and curling, at the bottom center in this abstract painting. At the core, a muted orange band curves around and through a kidney-shaped green form. Other bands curl and loop out from there. The bands intersect and cross each other, like fingers loosely interlocking to make a cage. The space seems to flatten out at the upper right, where the dark purple deepens to nearly black.
Figure 13. Georgia O’Keeffe. Leaf Motif, No. 2, 1924. Oil on canvas, 35 x 18 in. McNay Art Museum, Mary and Sylvan Lang Collection. View on the McNay website.
Painting. A vibrant yellow, egg-shaped form is surrounded in bands of apricot and saffron orange. The egg tips up and to our right. Along the top, left, and bottom edges, it seems cushioned into a field of a darker orange, which is painted with blended strokes to give it a soft look. The orange fades to white at the top right corner and down the right side. In the top left corner, a magenta-pink, bean-shaped form is nestled into a lighter peach area. Two lines of deep pink stretch from the bean form, like blood vessels.
Figure 14. Georgia O’Keeffe. Pelvis Series, Red with Yellow, 1945. Oil on canvas, 36 x 48 in. Extended Loan, Private Collection.
Thoma Foundation Logo
Typewritten document. The press release heading is printed with red ink. The only legible line there reads, in the largest letters, 'News Release from the Art Institute of Chicago.' Below, a line in black, all caps reads, 'Three important exhibitions,' and then, a little farther down, 'Georgia O'Keeffe comes to Chicago.' Typewriter text fills the rest of the sheet. A 'note' near the top reads, 'A midwinter group of exhibitions opens January 21 in the East Wing Galleries headlined by the largest retrospective showing of Paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe ever held. Also included: Religious Folk Art of the Spanish Southwest: and Recent Acquisitions.' The body of the press release reads, 'Miss O’Keeffe, a former student of the school of the Art Institute, and at present the most famous woman painter in the world, is coming to Chicago to direct the installation of her exhibition and to be present at the opening. This is the first retrospective exhibition of her work to be shown in any museum. Sixty-one different pictures will trace the development of her art chronologically from 1916 until today. Born in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, Miss O’Keeffe has lived in Chicago, New York, Texas, and the Southwest. Her painting is noted for its luminous, unconventional color and its simplified imaginative use of form.' A subheading reads, also in all caps, 'O'Keeffe pictures bring extremely high prices.' Text continues, 'Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings command higher prices than those of any other living woman. As much as $10,000 has been paid for one painting by her, and this despite the fact that she is completely independent in her approach to her material. In 1923 she wrote the following: ‘One day seven years ago I found myself saying to myself – I can’t live where I want to – I can’t go where I want to – I can’t do what I want to – I can’t even say what I want to – . I decided I am a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted to.’' Creases where the sheet had been folded in thirds are visible.
Figure 1. Art Institute of Chicago press release, January 11, 1943.
Black and white photograph. A cleanshaven man wearing a suit and with a rounded face looks just off to our right with dark eyes in this portrait. His shoulders and face are angled to our right. He has a high forehead, low brows, and a rounded nose and chin. Light glints off his short, dark hair. He wears a suit jacket, a striped button-up shirt, and a diamond-patterned tie.
Figure 2. Daniel Catton Rich, 1939.
Handwritten letter. The letterhead at the top center of the sheet shows a rooster standing atop a crest, with three smaller roosters in a row within. Beneath the shield-shaped crest is a banner that reads, 'The Blackstone.' Under that is printed, 'Chicago' O’Keeffe’s pencil-written letter is below. Her writing is a little choppy with pronounced loops for lowercase letters h, l, and d. Text reads, 'Another day gone – it is Friday night I’ve been up most of the day – wanted to go out but didn’t – I even put a dress on – Maria came for an hour this morning and again at 5 – for supper and left a little after 8 – Narcissa came for half an hour with her husband this evening – Maria says there must have been over 400 people there today – they all agree that everyone feels it'.
Figure 3. Georgia O’Keeffe to Alfred Stieglitz, January 23, 1943. Letters to Alfred Stieglitz, MS.9. Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. View on the O’Keeffe Museum website.
Watercolor. Two slender lines with tapering, sharply pointed tips extend up from a pool of ink blue in this abstract vertical painting on bone-white paper. A broad smudge of dark blue spans most of the bottom edge of the sheet. The two lines emerge close together from just right of center. The line on the left stretches about two-thirds of the way up the sheet before angling downward, and then back up in a sideways z-shaped zigzag. The vertical line next to it nearly reaches the top edge of the sheet. Both swell and then taper back down near their tips.
Figure 4. Georgia O’Keeffe. Blue Lines X / Blue Lines, 1916. Watercolor and graphite on paper, 25 x 19 in. Metropolitan Museum of Art, Alfred Stieglitz Collection. View on the Met Museum website.
Charcoal drawing. Jagged forms, long, bulb-like shapes, and wavy lines are layered up along the center of this cream-white paper in this vertical drawing. A zig-zagging line to our left is filled in with solid medium gray to make a serrated form. Four tall, finger-like mounds clustered next to it, to our right, are darker, almost black. Some strokes of charcoal are visible, especially on the shape closest to us. Wavy lines create an outline for a form like a river to our right, which is shaded lightly but mostly white. The paper is smudged around the collection of forms.
Figure 5. Georgia O’Keeffe. Drawing XIII, 1915 / No. 13, Special, 1916. Charcoal on paper, 24 3/8 x 18 1/2 in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Alfred Stieglitz Collection. View on the Met Museum website.
Painting. Rust-red, barren hills fill most of this picture. Two dried bones span the bottom edge of the painting close to us, and goldenrod-yellow cliffs fill in the background. A thick, long bone with curved ends sits to our left, just in front of a spine with ten vertebrae. They sit on a low, wine-red hill. The valley leading back to the hill beyond is carpeted in patches of sky blue, white, and pale green. That hill takes up about two-thirds of the picture. Its smooth surface is lined with crevices, and there is a band of lighter orange near the bottom. In the top quarter of the composition, loosely painted strokes of deep yellow, coral pink, lilac purple, terracotta orange, and a few touches of pale turquoise suggest more rocky outcroppings and cliffs.
Figure 6. Georgia O’Keeffe. Red Hills and Bones, 1941. Oil on canvas, 29 3/4 x 40 in. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Alfred Stieglitz Collection. View on the PMA website.
Painting. A shiny, round-bellied black vase holds three feathers striped with brown, black, and white, all against a sand-brown background. Light glints off the round body of the vase, which takes up two-thirds the height of this painting. Only the white tip of one feather pokes over the top edge of the vase. More of the light brown and black stripes are visible on the two feathers behind it. A triangular form in the lower right corner and a vertical band running up the canvas, about a quarter of the way in from the right edge, suggest that the vase is tucked into a niche or the corner of a wall.
Figure 7. Georgia O’Keeffe. Turkey Feathers and Indian Pot, 1941. Oil on canvas. Private Collection.
Black and white photograph. Eleven widely spaced paintings line the walls of a long room in this installation view. Through a squared opening at the end of the room opposite us, at least three more doorways telescope into the distance, ending in a flat wall at the far end of the building. The room we are in has a double-sided wooden bench at the center beneath a grid of lights above, which reflects off the shiny dark floor. The paintings show flaring petals or antlers, or layers of geometric shapes.
Figure 8. Exhibition installation photo, Art Institute of Chicago, 1943.
Black and white photograph. We look into the far corner of a gallery space, with nine paintings lining the walls to either side of an opening, near the far corner. The paintings show flame-like petals, an animal skull, or abstracted, geometric shapes. The grid of lights above reflects in the dark, shiny floor below. In this view, we see three wooden benches placed along the perimeter of the room.
Figure 9. Exhibition installation photo, Art Institute of Chicago, 1943.
Black and white photograph. This room has an opening at the far end, and walls angle inward across the corners to either side of it. Ten paintings are hung along a textured wall that appears gray in this photograph. The paintings show abstracted or stylized trees, mountains, skulls, or layered shapes. With the grid of lights above and the dark floor below, we look into at least three more rooms, barely visible to either side of the nested doorways.
Figure 10. Exhibition installation photo, Art Institute of Chicago, 1943.
Black and white newspaper clipping. In this grainy image, O’Keeffe stands looking up at a painting of flame-like, flaring petals. The caption beneath reads, 'Georgia O'Keeffe and her 'Jack-in-the-Pulpit.'' An inset box at the top left reads, 'Dayton Ohio News Sunday February 21 1943.' O’Keeffe wears a black, long-sleeved dress and a black cap that covers her hair. Her features are indistinct in this blurry image but dark brows stand out on her high forehead. She has a long nose, and she smiles slightly. She rests the pinky edge of one hand along the side of the canvas.
Figure 11. Clipping from a Dayton, Ohio newspaper. Sunday, February 21, 1943.
Painting. Most of this picture is taken up by a thick-armed, black cross. A stylized landscape beyond has densely packed, gray and brown hills leading back to a horizon lined with burnt orange and vivid yellow. The crossbeam sits just over the horizon, which comes halfway up the painting. Four round objects, presumably nail heads, are unevenly spaced on the crossing of the beams. The sky above the crossbeam, in the upper corners of the canvas, lightens from powder blue across the top to light yellow above the cross. A white circle near the upper right corner suggests a distant moon or bright star.
Figure 12. Georgia O’Keeffe. Black Cross, New Mexico / Black Cross, 1929. Oil on canvas, 39 x 30 in. Art Institute of Chicago. View on the AIC website.
Black and white photograph. A woman, Georgia O’Keeffe, wears a dark hat and coat as she looks up and to our right, her hands gathered around the button on her high-necked collar at her throat. Her head and hands nearly fill the picture. She has dark eyes, a straight nose with a rounded end, and high cheekbones. Her mouth is closed, and her upper lip is darker than her full lower lip. The hat has a tall crown and short brim, and it comes down to her thick eyebrows and over her ears. The button of her high-collared coat shines as it catches the light. With the hand on our left, she creates an O with her forefinger and thumb as she pinches the button. Her other fingers curl in as her palm turns toward us, so her fingers resemble a cresting wave. The middle finger of that hand also touches the button, and those fingers curve toward her palm, which faces our left. Behind her is an abstract work showing a light-colored, rounded object within a darker field. The round area creates a kind of halo around her head. Her face and hands are slightly out of focus.
Alfred Stieglitz. Georgia O’Keeffe, 1918. Platinum print, 9 1/4 x 7 1/4 in. Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. Gift of The Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation. View on the O’Keeffe Museum website.
Black and white photograph. We look slightly up at O’Keeffe as she stands swathed in a black coat or wrap, wearing a black hat pulled down to just above her brow, against a white, washed-out sky. Shown from the knees up, her body is angled to our right but she turns her face to us. She gazes down her long nose through narrowed eyes, off to our left. Lit from our right, sharp shadow defines the hollow under her high cheekbone on our left. Her lips are set in a line, and she seems to lean a little away from us. Her entire body is hidden behind her black garment. The light gray horizon comes about an eighth of the way up the composition, and the rest of the background is pale sky.
Figure 1. Alfred Stieglitz. Georgia O’Keeffe, 1920–22 . Gelatin silver print, 4 1/2 x 3 9/16 in. Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. Gift of The Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation. View on the O’Keeffe Museum website.
Painting. Rounded forms in cool mint and laurel green, topaz, and cobalt blue flare outward from a dark blue teardrop shape near the top center of this composition and envelop an inverted teardrop shape, in mauve pink, below the first. The rounded, flaring forms extend off all four sides of the composition. The dark blue teardrop is surrounded by a wide ring of aquamarine blue around the top that lightens to seafoam green below. Bands flare out and up, creating peaks to either side of this ring in the same jewel-toned greens and blues. Two larger forms swell out surround the pink teardrop below. A vertical line extends from the lower teardrop to the bottom edge of the painting, splitting the two forms there. Those forms have smaller lobes above the teardrop and are wider below, like bottom-heavy kidney beans. The areas closest to the pink teardrop are frosty green, darkening to spruce and teal green at the edges. Along the top of the composition, the background deepens from shell pink near the flower to dusky-rose pink at the edge. Darker pink fills in the lower corners. Brushstrokes are visible in some areas and more blended in others.
Figure 2. Georgia O’Keeffe. Series I White & Blue Flower Shapes, 1919. Oil on board, 19 7/8 x 15 3/4 in. Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. Gift of The Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation. View on the O’Keeffe Museum website.
Palladium print. O’Keeffe’s head is at the bottom center of this tall palladium print. In warm tones of golden brown and velvety black, she raises one hand high so it reaches into the upper right corner while the other hand is up near her face, both with palms out. O’Keeffe looks off to our left under dark brows. The outer corners of her eyes and lips turn slightly down. Tendons stand out in her neck, and her long dark hair extends off the bottom edge of the image. Her arm to our left curves up and over her head, dark hair visible in her armpit. That thumb may touch the work of art behind her, which shows a swirling form that grows up the composition in much the same shape as her arm. Her other hand is near her head, palm facing us, with that thumb close to or brushing that ear.
Figure 3. Alfred Stieglitz. Georgia O’Keeffe, 1918. Palladium print, 9 3/8 x 6 3/8 in. National Gallery of Art, Alfred Stieglitz Collection. View on the NGA website.
Charcoal drawing. Mostly short horizontal, vertical, and curving black lines interlock to make a mass that runs up the center of the composition, nearly filling the height of this tan-colored paper. A few longer diagonal lines bring the shapes together into an abstracted human form. Some cup-like lines could indicate the person’s head, shoulders, and breasts. Horizontal hatching and smudges fill in or outline the shapes throughout.
Figure 4. Pablo Picasso. Standing Female Nude, 1910. Charcoal on paper, 19 x 12 3/8 in. Collection The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Alfred Stieglitz Collection. © 2022 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. View on the Met Museum website.
Charcoal drawing. Jagged forms, long, bulb-like shapes, and wavy lines are layered up along the center of this cream-white paper in this vertical drawing. A zig-zagging line to our left is filled in with solid medium gray to make a serrated form. Four tall, finger-like mounds clustered next to it, to our right, are darker, almost black. Some strokes of charcoal are visible, especially on the shape closest to us. Wavy lines create an outline for a form like a river to our right, which is shaded lightly but mostly white. The paper is smudged around the collection of forms.
Figure 5. Georgia O’Keeffe. Drawing XIII, 1915 / No. 13, Special, 1916. Charcoal on paper, 24 3/8 × 18 1/2 in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Alfred Stieglitz Collection. View on the Met Museum website.
Painting. Two pieces of vivid green fruit sit in a burgundy-red basket, which hovers over or sits on a doily-like form against a carnation-pink field below. The painting is created with mostly flat areas of color, though there is some shading to create a sense of volume in the fruit and basket. The bottom ends of the shamrock-green pears face upward. They sit side-by-side in a long, narrow basket. The handle curves up from the narrow ends. The outside of the basket is dark red, the inside navy blue. A gray shape to our left could be a shadow cast by the basket. The area behind the basket is cream white but an underlayer of cobalt blue shows through in some of the more thinly painted areas. The doily beneath the basket has a scalloped edge. The pink surface below fills the bottom half of the painting and is mottled with a darker shade of pink in the bottom right corner and to our left of the doily.
Figure 6. Georgia O’Keeffe. Alligator Pear - No. 2, 1920–21. Oil on canvas, 23 1/4 x 18 in. Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. Gift of The Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation. View on the O’Keeffe Museum website.
Watercolor and drawing on paper. Paint is brushed, washed, and scrubbed on the paper in shades of moss and pine green, royal blue, mustard yellow, gray, and brown to create an abstracted view across a grassy ledge onto a body of water beyond. The scene is loosely painted so many details are difficult to make out. An outline of a charcoal-gray square tips into the scene from the bottom right corner, filling most of the paper’s height and width. The grassy hillside closest to us is painted in washes of golden yellow and sage green. It angles down to our left, where another area of peat brown outside the square could be a neighboring hill. A few caramel and tawny brown squiggles in the lower right corner of the watercolor could be an animal. Dark green trees line the hill to our right. Midnight blue, yellow, and brown squiggles to our left on the neighboring hill could be more trees. They are layered over areas of cobalt and topaz blue. The horizon is marked with a coral-red line, and the sky above, in the top fifth of the paper, is washes of pale blue, yellow, and dark gray. The artist signed and dated the bottom right corner, “Marin 22.”
Figure 7. John Marin. From Deer Isle, Maine, 1922. Watercolor, gouache, charcoal, and graphite on wove paper, 16 7/8 x 20 1/16 in. National Gallery of Art, Gift of John Marin Jr. View on the NGA website.
Black and white photograph. A white wall with Georgia O’Keeffe’s signature scrawled in black, oversized, cursive letters, takes up the left half of this image. The room beyond is hung with two paintings, and the sliver of an opening leading to another space is barely visible along the right edge. The letters of O’Keeffe’s name are rounded, with the lowercase g and f letters making spikes along its length. One painting in the background is lighter and shows stylized, curving forms; the other painting is dark and difficult to make out.
Figure 1. Installation view of the 1946 exhibition Georgia O’Keeffe at the Museum of Modern Art. Photographic Archive. The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York. IN319.1. Photograph by Soichi Sunami. View on the MoMA website.
Typewritten document. The cream-colored sheet has a press release heading typed in underlined all caps: 'Paintings of Georgia O'Keeffe shown in retrospective exhibition at Museum of Modern Art.' The paragraph below is headed with the text in quotation marks, 'Finally a woman on paper.' The paragraph beneath reads, 'These words, spoken by Alfred Stieglitz in 1915, were the actual launching of Georgia O’Keeffe on a career that has led to her recognition as a major American artist. On Wednesday, May 15, a retrospective exhibition of her works will open at the Museum of Modern Art and continue through August 25. The exhibition has been selected and installed by James Johnson Sweeney, Director of the Museum’s Department of Painting and Sculpture. Mr. Sweeney has also written the book on O’Keeffe which the Museum will publish concurrently with the exhibition.'
Figure 2. Museum of Modern Art press release (detail), 1946. Full version available for download from the MoMA website.
Handwritten letter. Text is written in grayed ink on cream-white paper, except for a line added near the top in what appears to be pencil. Between two inked lines, that added line reads, in quotes, ‘Finally a woman on paper’ – he said.' The visible text of the letter starts and ends mid-sentences. It reads: 'while before his lips opened – Then he smiled at me and yelled ‘Wolkomitz come here’ – Then he said to me ‘Why they’re genuinely fine things – you say a woman did these – she’s an unusual woman – She’s broad-minded, she’s bigger than most women, but she’s got the sensitive emotions – I’d know'.
Figure 3. Anita Pollitzer to Georgia O’Keeffe, December 31, 1915 (detail). Alfred Stieglitz/Georgia O’Keeffe Archive. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
Black and white photograph. O’Keeffe sits on the deep ledge of a window opening and looks at us, one hand raised to the upturned collar of her shirt. The square window opening fills the top three-quarters of the picture, and glass-paned panels open toward us. On our side of the window, O’Keeffe sits on the sill, her crossed legs angled to our right, her back leaning against the left edge of the opening. She turns her oval face to look at us from the corners of her eyes. She pulls her chin back a bit, a faint smile on her lips. Her dark hair is swept loosely up, and it blends with the shadowy room behind her. Her black coat has round buttons down the front and is held loosely in place with a belt. Her long, dark skirt covers her legs to her ankles, above white socks and shoes. Her right hand, to our left and closer to us, rests in her lap. Her other hand is raised to the tall point of her upturned collar, by her left cheek.
Figure 1. Unknown photographer. Georgia O’Keeffe in Texas (detail), between 1912 and 1918. Georgia O’Keeffe Photographs, MS.37. Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. View on the O’Keeffe Museum website.
Painting. Three clusters of ash-brown and charcoal-gray, smooth, stylized tree trunks nearly fill this horizontal canvas. The ground below the trees is eggshell white, and blue sky fills in the top half. The surface of the trunks are smooth and curve gently, like bones. Their rounded bases are near the bottom edge of the canvas, and the trunks extend off the top edge. A cluster of three ash-brown trunks is to our left and a gray pair behind it at the center. One larger brown trunk to our right has a band of the white up the lower center, suggesting drifting snow. There are touches of muted brick red around the bottoms of the trunks.
Figure 2. Georgia O’Keeffe. Bare Tree Trunks with Snow, 1946. Oil on canvas, 29 1/2 x 39 1/2 in. Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas Art Association Purchase. View on the DMA website.
Painting. A single black line swells and tapers in curves across a white canvas like an uneven capital B. In the top left corner, the small top bulb of the B comes to a rounded tip pointing to our right. The second line takes up the vast majority of the composition. It stretches from near the top left corner all the way across to the center of the right edge. It then swells into a thicker line where it curves back toward the lower left corner.
Figure 3. Georgia O’Keeffe. Winter Road I, 1963. Oil on canvas, 22 x 18 inches. National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of The Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation. View on the NGA website.
Painting. A stylized landscape is made up of fog-gray, harvest-yellow, and rose-pink hills leading back to a flat-topped, black mesa in this long, horizontal painting. The gray, yellow, and pink hills take up about the bottom third of the composition. The black mesa takes up more than half the height of the canvas, and two crimson-red streaks rise up the right edge. The sky above is paper white.
Figure 4. Georgia O’Keeffe. Dark Mesa with Pink Sky, 1930. Oil on canvas, 16 x 29 7/8 inches. Amon Carter Museum of American Art. View on the Amon Carter website.
Painting. A peanut-brown, flat form spans most of this composition, except for a long, slender white triangle at the top left corner. A tall, narrow black rectangle near the lower left corner suggests a window opening in the side of a building. The brown wall is shaded darker to our left and lightens to tan across the face of the wall to our right. A darker brown strip along the right edge of the canvas suggests the turning of the corner of the building. The sky is washed-out white in the top left.
Figure 5. Georgia O’Keeffe. Black Patio Door, 1955. Oil on Canvas, 40 1/8 x 30 in. Amon Carter Museum of American Art. View on the Amon Carter website.
Watercolor. Washes in shades of blue and green create a curving, rainbow-like form against the beige of the paper in this vertical sheet. A band of sapphire blue across the bottom has a rounded bottom to create a long, cup-like form. A pale, honeydew-green band curves beneath it. Over the blue form, a light green mound creates the interior of the curving bands that then extend up like a rainbow. The bands deepen from pale green to sage, and then deeper, jewel-toned blues as they rise to the top of the sheet. A field of aquamarine-blue fills in the squared top of the sheet. The bands do not touch so the beige of the sheet shows through. Each band is mottled where the watercolor has feathered and pooled.
Figure 6. Georgia O’Keeffe. Light Coming on the Plains No. I, 1917. Watercolor on thin, beige, smooth wove paper and newsprint, 11 7/8 x 8 7/8 in. Amon Carter Museum of American Art. View on the Amon Carter website.
Watercolor. Arching washes of sky, royal, and navy blue blend to create a tall, egg-like shape on beige paper. A shallow, dish-like form of ultramarine blue runs across the bottom of the sheet. Above a narrow gap where the beige paper shows through, the tall form rises up into a dome. A pale glow at the bottom center of that form shifts to arctic blue and then deepens gradually to ultramarine around the top edge. Having worked wet-in-wet, the watercolor blends outward, like the rays of a rising sun. A few darker areas of blue are pooled around the top.
Figure 7. Georgia O’Keeffe. Light Coming on the Plains No. II / No. II Light Coming on the Plains, 1917. Watercolor on thin, beige, smooth wove paper and newsprint, 11 7/8 x 8 7/8 in. Amon Carter Museum of American Art. View on the Amon Carter website.
Watercolor. Here, the arching form of blended bands deepens from pale turquoise at the center to azure blue and then muted plum purple, again on beige-colored paper. The cup-like band across the bottom fades from royal blue to eggplant brown, then mint green. The blue and purple swirl together, especially across the top of the rounded form at the top of the page.
Figure 8. Georgia O’Keeffe. Light Coming on the Plains No. III / No. III Light Coming on the Plains, 1917. Watercolor on thin, beige, smooth wove paper and newsprint, 11 7/8 x 8 7/8 in. Amon Carter Museum of American Art. View on the Amon Carter website.
Watercolor. Warm orange and red rings surround a yellow ring near the upper left corner. The rest of the field is filled with pools of shades of lapis blue. The yellow circle is near the upper left corner. The white of the unpainted paper separates it from the clay-orange ring surrounding it, which is then encircled in a red ring. A tail-like line extends from the outer, red ring to stretch to the right edge of the paper. The blue paint of the sky touches the red ring along the left edge and near the red line so blue and red bleed together in those two areas. The blue areas are especially mottled with wet-on-wet blue pigment.
Figure 9. Georgia O’Keeffe. Evening Star No. V, 1917. Watercolor on paper, 8 5/8 x 11 5/8 in. McNay Art Museum, Bequest of Helen Miller Jones. View on the McNay website.
Watercolor. Clouds of white smoke highlighted with lemon yellow and shaded with delphinium blue billow out of an upside-down teardrop shape that could be a train on a track in this abstracted composition. The cloud takes up most of the top two-thirds of the vertical sheet. The teardrop shape, or train, is dark blue and has a yellow circle, presumably a headlight, is just to our left of center. Three lines emanate from the point of the train and extend to our left. One band is olive green, one is rust orange, and the third is royal blue. Washes of watercolor around the train and cloud lightens from violet across the top to pale slate blue along the bottom edge.
Figure 10. Georgia O’Keeffe. Train Coming in - Canyon, Texas / Train at Night in the Desert, 1916. Watercolor on paper, 9 3/4 x 8 1/4 in. Amarillo Museum of Art, Purchased with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, Amarillo Area Foundation, AMoA Alliance, Fannie Weymouth, Santa Fe Industries Foundation and Mary Fain.
Painting. A jagged, rounded form like a circular saw blade blends from honey and canary yellow to marigold orange and scarlet red in this long, horizontal painting. A band of brown along the bottom edge is topped by narrower bands of flame red and orange. The rest of the canvas is taken up with serrated bands of orange and yellow flaring off of a honey-yellow semicircle along the horizon. The semicircle is mottled with darker areas of pumpkin orange. The upper corners are vivid red.t
Figure 11. Georgia O’Keeffe. From the Plains I / From the Plains, 1953. Oil on canvas, 47 11/16 x 83 5/8 in. McNay Art Museum, Gift of the Estate of Tom Slick. View on the McNay website.
Painting. A white, dry goat’s skull sits on a sandy dune in the lower left corner of this vertical painting. Two dunes rise in the distance beyond, nearly filling the composition. The skull is painted parchment white shaded with pale lavender purple. An undefined, curling tuft near the head could be the remnants of the goat’s skin or fur. The skull is angled to our right, almost in profile. Sun washes the sandy area beyond the skull in golden yellow. The dune that curves up and to our right is darker, army brown. Another sunlit dune fills the top left corner. A sliver of pale pink sky stretches across the top edge of the canvas.
Figure 12. Georgia O’Keeffe. Goat’s Head, 1957. Oil on canvas, 20 x 16 in. McNay Art Museum, Gift of the Estate of Tom Slick. View on the McNay website.
Painting. Curving forms in pale peach, orange, eucalyptus green, fawn brown, mauve pink, and deep purple intertwine around an ear-like form, ridged and curling, at the bottom center in this abstract painting. At the core, a muted orange band curves around and through a kidney-shaped green form. Other bands curl and loop out from there. The bands intersect and cross each other, like fingers loosely interlocking to make a cage. The space seems to flatten out at the upper right, where the dark purple deepens to nearly black.
Figure 13. Georgia O’Keeffe. Leaf Motif, No. 2, 1924. Oil on canvas, 35 x 18 in. McNay Art Museum, Mary and Sylvan Lang Collection. View on the McNay website.
Painting. A vibrant yellow, egg-shaped form is surrounded in bands of apricot and saffron orange. The egg tips up and to our right. Along the top, left, and bottom edges, it seems cushioned into a field of a darker orange, which is painted with blended strokes to give it a soft look. The orange fades to white at the top right corner and down the right side. In the top left corner, a magenta-pink, bean-shaped form is nestled into a lighter peach area. Two lines of deep pink stretch from the bean form, like blood vessels.
Figure 14. Georgia O’Keeffe. Pelvis Series, Red with Yellow, 1945. Oil on canvas, 36 x 48 in. Extended Loan, Private Collection.
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