This post was written by our 2024 Library and Archives Intern, Miranda Hynes. Miranda joins us from UT Austin where she is studying Art History and Museum Studies, and will be on the team through August. Stay tuned for more guest posts from her this summer!
Copyright © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
In celebration of this Pride Month, we’re shining a light on the friendship between Georgia O’Keeffe and arguably the most famous openly gay artist of the 20th century– Andy Warhol! Though it’s not clear exactly when the two artists first came into contact, they met multiple times before O’Keeffe’s passing in 1986. Not only are there a number of photos of the two together (like the picture above, taken in 1977), Andy Warhol was inspired by O’Keeffe to create multiple projects about her. For one, O’Keeffe was the subject of one of Warhol’s influential silk-screen portrait series, where a photograph portrait of O’Keeffe was printed and re-printed in high contrast color combinations. Warhol also wrote an article for Interview Magazine in 1983 entitled “Georgia O’Keeffe Stays True to her Vision,” wherein Warhol interviewed O’Keeffe and her assistant, Juan Hamilton. In this interview, O’Keeffe aptly says about Warhol: “I think he’s going to be one of the important persons of the period,” (you can read the full interview here). Though much of their friendship was a professional relationship, Warhol did visit O’Keeffe’s home in Abiquiu, New Mexico. In fact, Warhol tried to leave his signature on part of O’Keeffe’s beloved house. Agapita Judy Lopez worked for O’Keeffe in the late 70’s and early 80’s and is the Project Director of Historic Properties at Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch at the O’Keeffe Museum today. She shared this story with me:
“I don’t remember the year, but that summer I worked for Miss O’Keeffe and stayed with her at her Ghost Ranch house. One day as I came in to work, I informed her I was there and asked how the day had gone. She remarked that the housekeeper, Ida, had come to her in the morning quite upset that someone had written on the refrigerator door, but for Miss O’Keeffe not to worry, she had washed it off. It turned out Andy Warhol had visited Miss O’Keeffe the day before and autographed the corner of the refrigerator door and that was what Ida washed off!”
If you want to watch a talk from Agapita, who has many first-hand experiences with Georgia O’Keeffe, you can click here. The connection between the two artists has extended long after their respective passings, such as the gift of one of Warhol’s polaroid books from the Andy Warhol Foundation to the O’Keeffe Museum, which is now held in the Museum’s collections. In 2005, the O’Keeffe Museum mounted an exhibit which displayed the two artists’ works side-by-side, focusing on a subject that they both returned to many times throughout their lives: flowers.
Moments in Modernism - Georgia O'Keeffe and Andy Warhol: Flowers of Distinction, 2005 May 13 through 2006 January 8, Museum Publications - Exhibitions (RG311). Georgia O’Keeffe Museum.
By the time Georgia O’Keeffe and Andy Warhol met, he had been living as an out gay man for around two decades, in a time where being gay was still vilified and even criminalized. Warhol's art– as well as the music, celebrities, and social world which surrounded him– are iconic pieces of LGBTQ history to this day. Though some may view the pop-art of Warhol’s time as very different from O’Keeffe’s many paintings, both artists produced works that were rooted in being unabashedly individual, an ideal that we can all aspire to. Happy Pride!
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