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For this year's American Archives Month, we have been spotlighting the Georgia O’Keeffe Papers (MS33), to celebrate the completion of processing and the publication of the finding aid after many years and several archivists. 

To wrap this year's American Archives Month up, we will turn our focus to one of the more popular series of the collection: the House and Property files. O’Keeffe maintained two homes in Northern New Mexico; her summer home at the Ghost Ranch, and her home and studio in Abiquiu. While both homes are owned by the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, only the Abiquiu Home and Studio is open for public tours. O’Keeffe’s homes reveal her commitment to design and the aesthetics of her surroundings. She made her home distinctly modern, with abundant natural light, updated amenities and midcentury furniture. She kept manuals and brochures from appliances and tools that she used, including her Chemex carafes, Macintosh radio, and Barwa chairs.

O’Keeffe was also an avid gardener; when she purchased her Abiquiu home in 1945, she hired Maria Chabot to manage the restoration and rebuilding of the property to take place between 1946 and 1949, while O’Keeffe was in New York settling Alfred Stieglitz’s estate. Chabot planned to line the perimeter of the garden with tamarisks, willows and various fruit trees. The center of the garden would be leveled for planting vegetables and flowers (corn, radishes, roses, irises, poppies and hollyhocks). By the time O’Keeffe made Abiquiu her permanent home in 1949, the garden was able to supply almost all of the fruits and vegetables for her homes. She harvested the plants during the summer, enjoying the fresh produce at her Ghost Ranch home and preserving other herbs, fruits and vegetables for winter use at the Abiquiu house by drying, canning and freezing them. The garden at her Abiquiu home remains much as it was during her lifetime. Staff and interns, who live in Abiquiu and surrounding communities, work the land every summer and distribute the fruits and vegetables locally and to nearby food banks. 

The materials related to the garden in the Georgia O’Keeffe Papers include these seed catalogs, instructional manuals, irrigation techniques, and a “Victory Garden Handbook”.

 House and property files, 1943-1983, undated, Georgia O’Keeffe Papers, 1914-1991. MS-33. Gift of the Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation. Georgia O'Keeffe Museum.

To continue our celebration of American Archives Month 2023, we are featuring content from newly processed collections from our archive each week. This year, we are spotlighting the Georgia O’Keeffe Papers (MS33), to celebrate the completion of processing and the publication of the finding aid after many years and several archivists. 

Another series in this collection includes Georgia O’Keeffe's travel ephemera. She famously loved to travel and equally loved to document these travels, creating boxes of ephemera for each location she visited. She took her first international trip in the 1930s and traveled continuously until 1983, when she went on her last international trip to Costa Rica at the age of 96. From informational pamphlets to design ideas for her home and garden, these materials reflect what she chose to keep as mementos of her travels. For more information about her travels, see the August “Mornings with O’Keeffe” talk given by Giustina Renzoni, Curator of Historic Properties, here.

These photos include pamphlets from O'Keeffe's trips to the Glen Canyon and Lake Powell area, New Mexico, Mexico, and Tahiti.

Travel Files 1946-circa 1980, Georgia O’Keeffe Papers, 1914-1991. MS-33. Gift of the Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation. Georgia O'Keeffe Museum.

To continue our celebration of American Archives Month 2023, which happens every October, we are featuring content from newly processed collections from our archive each week. This year, we are spotlighting the Georgia O’Keeffe Papers (MS33), to celebrate the completion of processing and the publication of the finding aid after many years and several archivists. 

Another subseries in this collection is the Abiquiu Notebooks, which are essentially documentation of O’Keeffe herself as an archivist. These notebooks are a comprehensive index of her works dating from 1914 through the 1970s, sorted by date, location, and subject, and include reference photographs. The notebooks also include the Alfred Stieglitz estate distribution, which took O’Keeffe 3 years to settle.

The Abiquiu Notebooks are O'Keeffe's own records of her artwork, originally compiled by Doris Bry, chief assistant, curator, exclusive dealer and, finally, executor of O'Keeffe's estate, in the 1950s. The Notebooks document titles, dimensions, owners, exhibition history, and more in the form of an individual factsheet for each work, and often include reference photographs to remove the ambiguity around paintings' identities. Additional business papers include exhibition records, especially ephemera and checklists, as well as papers from O'Keeffe's time working with Edith Halpert and the Downtown Gallery, such as receipts, correspondence, and lists.

These photos are examples of O’Keeffe works by creation date and the accompanying exhibition history. Paintings shown in order: Maple and Cedar, Lake George 1923; Pattern of Leaves, 1923; and Pink Moon and Blue Lines, 1923.

Abiquiu Notebooks, 1914-1980, Georgia O’Keeffe Papers, 1914-1991. MS-33. Gift of the Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation. Georgia O'Keeffe Museum.

To celebrate American Archives Month 2023, which happens every October, we are featuring content from newly processed collections from our archive each week. This year, we are spotlighting the Georgia O’Keeffe Papers (MS33), to celebrate the completion of processing and the publication of the finding aid after many years and several archivists. 

A fascinating element of the Georgia O’Keeffe Papers documents her subterranean fallout shelter located at her Abiquiu home and studio. For some historical context, O’Keeffe was born in 1887 into a post-Civil War America. She lived through the Depression, World War II, the Vietnam War, and much of the Cold War. She began spending her summers at the Ghost Ranch cottage in 1935, and 10 years later, she bought a house down the road in Abiquiu. O’Keeffe moved in for good in 1949 – the year that the Soviet Union detonated their first nuclear test in Kazakhstan. Throughout the 1950s, nuclear tests took place all over the New Mexican desert, and O’Keeffe may have felt and seen the infamous “Trinity” test from Ghost Ranch.

By 1965, an estimated 200,000 shelters had been built across the country. According to Pita Lopez, the Museum's Director of Historic Properties, O’Keeffe built hers because she “wanted to be around to see what the landscape would look like if there was ever a catastrophe.”

The archival materials include handwritten instructions for reading the Victoreen Fallout Detection Meter, which was a device that will “tell you at a glance the rate of exposure at moment of exposure and helps you seek a safe refuge immediately. A precision instrument for protecting against lethal gamma rays from atomic fallout, it is the civilian version of the official model sold to the government by Victoreen.”

House and Property Files, Georgia O’Keeffe Papers, 1914-1991. MS-33. Gift of the Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation. Georgia O'Keeffe Museum.

To celebrate American Archives Month 2023, which happens every October, we are featuring content from newly processed collections from our archive. This year, we are spotlighting the Georgia O’Keeffe Papers (MS33), to celebrate the completion of processing and the publication of the finding aid after many years and several archivists!

After Georgia O'Keeffe's death, The Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation (GOKF) was established in 1989 to protect and preserve the legacy of Georgia O'Keeffe. One of its core functions was to distribute O'Keeffe's assets, including her Abiquiu home and studio, and the contents therein. Upon the dissolution of GOKF in 2006, GOKF donated remaining assets to the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. Among those assets were materials of an archival nature still contained in the Abiquiú home and studio. Those materials now constitute the Georgia O'Keeffe Papers, with the exception of archival materials from the Abiquiú home's Bookroom, which will be processed as a separate collection. Some archival materials remain in the Abiquiú home and studio, and will be transferred to the archive as accruals into the Georgia O'Keeffe Papers. As a whole, the Georgia O'Keeffe Papers provides a unique snapshot into O'Keeffe's day-to-day affairs by representing both the extraordinary aspects of her life as well as the decidedly mundane.

Over the next month, we will be highlighting a handful of prominent themes found throughout this particular collection. Included in these highlights are O’Keeffe’s fallout shelter at her Abiquiú home and studio, materials related to her garden, and other household ephemera. We will also be taking a look at the Abiquiú Notebooks series, which are O’Keeffe’s own record of her artwork, originally compiled by Doris Bry in the 1950’s. These notebooks document titles, dimensions, owners, exhibition history and more, and they often include reference photographs to remove the ambiguity around paintings’ identities. The collection also includes ephemeral materials from O’Keeffe’s world travel, correspondence, writings, and publications.

Please join us on social media, as well as the Museum's blog this month as we explore these facets of the archive this month. As a reminder, the Library & Archive serves the public by collecting, providing access to, and preserving information about Georgia O’Keeffe and her contemporaries, related regional histories, and Modernism. The Research Collections and Services team is available to answer questions, share resources, and help with your research projects; you can contact us here.