NEW MEXICO, DAY 2: GEORGIA O'KEEFFE MUSEUM IN SANTA FE

June 26, 2021

One of the museums I was most excited to visit on this trip was the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe. It's common to visit an art museum that focuses on a genre or time period, but less common to visit an art museum that focuses on the life work of a single artist. 

O'Keeffe first visited New Mexico in 1929 at age 42. She bought a home there in 1937 and a second one in 1945. New Mexico became her permanent home in 1949 (three years after the death of her husband) and she lived there until she died 37 years later in 1986.

Santa Fe's Georgia O'Keeffe Museum opened in 1997, eleven years after O'Keeffe's death. The building itself has the Santa Fe/Southwest adobe construction that is so prevalent in the area. The collection includes many of her best-known works, along with many others I would have never guessed were hers.

There are hundreds of paintings on display, just part of the collection that rotates among the galleries. I present my favorites, not in chronological order, but in the order I viewed them at the museum (and in the approximate order they are displayed, which is more or less thematically and definitely not chronologically). Occasionally as we walked through the galleries we read some interesting narrative that I will include bits and pieces of. 

"In 1915, while teaching art at Columbia College in Columbia, South Carolina, Georgia O'Keeffe made a radical decision. As she later explained: 'I have my things in my head that are not like waht anyone has taught me. . . . so I decided to start anew.' The bold drawings that resulted, infused with energy and emotion, were some of the world's first 'pure abstractions.' . . . Her abstractions were first exhibited in New York in 1916 at Alfred Stieglitz's avant-garde gallery '291.' By the mid-1920s, O'Keeffe was recognized as one of America's most important artists."

"In 1923, Stieglitz began organizing annual solo exhibitions of O'Keeffe's work. The following year, they were married."

Corn, No. 2 (1924)

Bella Donna (1939)

Would you have ever guessed this painting is by Georgia O'Keeffe? It was an early work, just prior to her more abstract period.

Horse (1914)

I love this one--unfamiliar to me. I thought it depicted red calla lilies, but is a painting of a mountain forest in autumn.

Trees in Autumn (1920-1921)

Painted at about the time she graduated from high school:

Vase of Flowers (1903-1905)

White Bird of Paradise (1939)

"At the start of 1959, Georgia O'Keeffe joined a small group on an around-the-world tour. Beginning in Japan, the group made stops in Hong Kong, India, and Nepal. For years, Asia had held a special fascination for O'Keeffe, and avid reading of books on Buddhism. She traveled again to Japan the following year and painted a pair of views of Mount Fuji."

One of my favorites, and another one I would never have guessed to be O'Keeffe's:

Mt. Fuji (1960)

Another favorite, and another one I would not have guessed to be hers, although on looking at it now, it is more recognizable as her style.

Machu Picchu I (1957)

Every now and then we would encounter Georgia herself. Here she is in Greece in 1963 at age 76, stunning in her Southwestern US attire:

And here she is in Morocco in 1974 at age 87! How can you not be fascinated by a woman who rides at camel at age 87?

The camel photo makes a good transition to her desert-themed work. I quite like this one. 

Gerald's Tree I (1937)

One room in the museum was dedicated to O'Keeffe's interest in nature. An adobe bench has an inset pocket that houses a rattlesnake skeletong.

Animal skulls made their way into many of O'Keeffe's most iconic paintings.

My favorite things about this photo are how the shadow looks like two legs with shoes
on the feet and Bob's reflection in the background.

Ram's Head, Blue Morning Glory (1938)

Horse's skull

Horse's Skull with White Rose (1931)

This next painting feels very contemporary to me.

Above the Clouds I (1962-1963)

In a New York Times article in 1970, O'Keeffe had this to say about her series of cloud paintings: 

"I was flying and saw them--the most extraordinary things. It looked as if you could walk right out of the plane."  

For my final pick, a quintessential O'Keeffe:

Black Hollyhock Blue Larkspur (1930)

One of the things that both of us really appreciated in the museum was this timeline of the artist's life (above the black line), juxtaposed with other important events happening in the world at the same time (below the black line). If you are interested, you can click on the photos to enlarge them so that you can read them.

Fourteen years before her death, O'Keeffe began to struggle with macular degeneration at age 85, and that year she completed her last unassisted painting. But at age 90 she declared, "The thing that makes you want to create is still there," and so she began to paint again with assistance. At age 93 she began to create clay pots. After she died at age 98 1/2, her ashes were scattered in northern New Mexico.

Georgia O'Keeffe, age 93
Photograph by Bruce Weber

READING

When I went looking for a book about Georgia O'Keeffe on Amazon, I was delighted to discover this one offered FREE with my Audible.com membership. Published in 1997, Portrait of an Artist: A Biography of Georgia O'Keeffe was "the first full-length biography and in-depth study of the celebrated painter's life." The author, Laurie Lisle, is a former reporter for Newsweek, and the book gets excellent reviews and 4.5 stars on Amazon. I am halfway through and really enjoying it. It is a good addition to my growing interest in O'Keeffe's art and background.