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04/05/2023
profile-icon Tori Duggan

Georgia O'Keeffe began travelling in the 1920s and began a more active period of travel abroad in the 1950s. Her travels reflect her interest in adventure and exploration. Check out our newest guide to learn about O'Keeffe's travels

 

Georgia O'Keeffe and unidentified person standing outside underneath an overhang in Japan.Georgia O'Keeffe in a dark wrap dress with white scarf on her heading standing at Friday Mosque, Esfahan and looking at you.

 

03/27/2023
profile-icon Liz Ehrnst

 

"The meaning of a word—to me—is not as exact as the meaning of a color." —Georgia O'Keeffe, 1976

Georgia O’Keeffe repeatedly mentions her distrust of the written word and her preference to communicate through her visual works. She writes to friend Anita Pollitzer in 1915, “I always have a hard time finding words for anything,” and in 1923 to author Sherwood Anderson, “I do not write to anyone—maybe I do not like telling myself to people—and writing means that.” Nevertheless, O’Keeffe wrote daily letters that offer insight into her personal and professional life as well as published writing about her artistic practice. The current library exhibition provides an opportunity to learn more about O’Keeffe’s writing efforts through correspondence, artist statements, book projects, and personal objects such as pens and ink.

O’Keeffe often wrote Alfred Stieglitz, her husband and noted photographer and gallerist, daily when they were apart. Their letters cover a wide range of topics – from brief exchanges about where she was traveling to lengthy emotionally charged missives penned over multiple days. The letter on display from O’Keeffe to Stieglitz was written while traveling across the country by train to New Mexico and is one of several letters postmarked April 19, 1944. Written on The Chief letterhead, she recounts her time at the Art Institute of Chicago with curator and friend, Daniel Catton Rich, who organized O’Keeffe’s first retrospective at the Museum in 1943. She writes about viewing the museum collections, such as works by Vasily Kandinsky and José Guadalupe Posada, as well as the display of her painting newly acquired by the museum. Rich and O’Keeffe also discuss museum collecting strategies. Rich thinks that “museums should only have the very best things that a worker produces”, while O’Keeffe is interested in understanding the evolution of an artist and writes that “as a worker — as a student I would have liked to find the development of two or three people lined up to look at.” The exhibition also includes a brief letter from O’Keeffe to her friend Maria Chabot, who she corresponded with regularly in the 1940s while Chabot successfully managed the difficult task of renovating O’Keeffe’s Abiquiu property. A third letter on view is from O’Keeffe to Caroline Keck, a trusted painting conservator, in which O'Keeffe explains that she’s sending Keck a dirty painting for treatment and that she refrained from vacuuming it. In fact, she almost destroyed the painting but Daniel Catton Rich encouraged her to keep it.

A fairly common question the library and archive receives is, "Where are all of O'Keeffe's letters?" The bulk of the letters written to O’Keeffe are in the Alfred Stieglitz/Georgia O’Keeffe Archive at Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. After Stieglitz’s death in 1946, O’Keeffe had the daunting task of managing her late husband’s estate. She was encouraged by friend Carl Van Vechten and Beinecke curator Donald Gallup to donate his archive to Yale and finally agreed to it in 1949. O’Keeffe intended her letters to be held alongside Stieglitz’s papers and began depositing letters at Yale during her lifetime. The remaining and bulk of O’Keeffe’s papers were sent to Yale by The Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation in 1992. Letters written by O’Keeffe to various individuals are held by the Beinecke as well as privately and by many institutions including the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. 

O’Keeffe’s statements on her work can be read in several exhibition catalogs dating from 1923 to 1944, as well as in select publications featured such as Some Memories of Drawings and Georgia O’Keeffe, her autobiography. While O’Keeffe had a few proposals to collaborate on a biography over the years, she turned them down or they never quite manifested and in the 1970s produced her own autobiography. True to form, O’Keeffe relies heavily on her works of art to tell her story with over a hundred color reproductions included and paired with thoughtfully selected and constructed text. The artist took great care in creating the large book and it was well reviewed and understood as the definitive study of the artist.  

In the copy of Manuscripts (MSS), the small arts journal founded by Alfred Stieglitz with Herbert J. Seligmann and Paul Rosenfeld, O’Keeffe’s written opinion on art and photography is shared. Just six issues were published from February 1922 to May 1923, and the important issue featured in the exhibition was dedicated to responses to the vexing question, “can a photograph have the significance of art?” Comments from readers, which included artists and writers such as Waldo Frank, Marcel Duchamp and John Marin, were printed unedited and certainly not in agreement. Georgia O’Keeffe writes, “I feel that some of the photography being done in America today is more living, more vital, than the painting and I know that there are other painters who agree with me.” O’Keeffe also created the cover graphic for the magazine at Stieglitz’s request. 

Never before displayed writing materials such as O’Keeffe’s fountain pens, nibs, ink, and pencils are also on exhibition as well as photographs of O'Keeffe. 

Georgia O'Keeffe: Finding Words will be on display in the Museum's Engl library and archive from March 2023 to March 2024.


Visit and Learn More

Georgia O’Keeffe bought her first home in the remote high-desert plateau of northern New Mexico at the Ghost Ranch in 1940. Check out this guide to learn more about her Ghost Ranch home!

 

O'Keeffe walking out the door onto the patio at Ghost Ranch carrying towels in her arm.

Screenshot for the Ghost Ranch guide

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


More about O'Keeffe's New Mexico homes:

05/02/2022
profile-icon Tori Duggan

Portrait of O'Keeffe in a Marimekko striped smock with her two chows as they both sit on large tree stumps in her Abiquiu house garden. Lilac bushes are in bloom in the background.

Spring is here and pretty soon you'll be able to see Georgia O'Keeffe's Abiquiú garden grow. Check out the Live View of Georgia O’Keeffe’s Garden to see how the garden evolves over the year. You can learn more about her garden in the library's guide to O'Keeffe's Abiquiú home. 


  Live View of Georgia O’Keeffe’s Garden

This live feed is being captured by a video camera installed on the roof of Georgia O’Keeffe’s home in Abiquiú, documenting the changes in the garden.

The library's guide to O'Keeffe's Abiquiú Home offers information about the house and the garden. Check out the guide to learn about the garden and the acequia. 

 

Getting started on your own garden? Check out Seed Libraries!

Seed libraries are a great (and fun!) way to get seeds for your garden and stay involved with your local community.

Here's a list of some nearby seed libraries at public libraries:

  Albuquerque and Bernalillo County Public Library

  Española Public Library

  Santa Fe Public Library

 

 

Announcing! - -  Guide to Georgia O'Keeffe's Artist Materials

The artist materials used by Georgia O'Keeffe offer insight into her artistic practice. Learn more in this new guide! 

Screenshot for the Artist Materials guide

 

12/14/2021
profile-icon Liz Ehrnst

Sascha Scott is the recipient of the 2021 Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Patricia and Phillip Frost Essay Award for her article “Georgia O’Keeffe’s Hawai'i? Decolonizing the History of American Modernism” in American Art. From the award jurors:

“using decolonial methodology, Scott engages a canonical figure and yet resituates them within the history of American art. It is the committee’s hope that scholars who work on O’Keeffe in the aftermath of this essay may be inspired by the model that Scott provides. We were impressed by the author’s conclusion, which was a call to action. Scott’s essay marks a pivotal moment in the field.” 

Scott is an Associate Professor and Director of Art History Graduate Studies in the Department of Art and Music Histories at Syracuse University and part of the faculty for the Native American and Indigenous Studies Program. In 2019, Scott published the article “Georgia O’Keeffe’s “Black Place in The Art Bulletin. She is currently working on two books, one of which is O’Keeffe Interrupted which “critically resituates the work of O’Keeffe within contexts of cultural colonialism, ecological imperialism and wartime technological disruptions.”

Both articles are available in print and electronic from the library, in addition to Scott’s 2015 book A Strange Mixture: The Art and Politics of Painting Pueblo Indians.

 

Read more about Scott and the Frost Essay Award.

Typed manuscript for My First Trip to New York.

To celebrate American Archives Month, we are featuring content from newly processed collections from our archive. This week, we are spotlighting Georgia O’Keeffe’s manuscript, My First Trip to New York.

In this ten-page, handwritten manuscript and corresponding typed transcripts, O’Keeffe recounts her first trip to New York to study at the Art Students’ League, as well as meeting Alfred Stieglitz for the first time. Written decades after the events described, O’Keeffe recalls on first entering 291 Gallery:

When Stieglitz heard us he came out and met us with glaring eyes, his dark hair standing up on the top of his head and some piece of photo equipment in his hand. He snapped at us and asked ‘What do you want?’ We wanted to see the Rodin drawings… I looked at the drawings and thought I had never been taught to do anything like that. It seemed to be scribbles. The men began to talk to Stieglitz – He talked back so voices became louder and louder. I wasn’t impressed so I went in the smallest room and stood waiting. There was nothing to sit on so I stood very tired of scribbly drawings and loud arguments.

Handwritten manuscript for My First Trip to New York.

To learn more about this collection and its contents, view the finding aid!

10/05/2021
Ashley Baranyk

Map, fliers, and brochure related to travel to Asia.

To celebrate American Archives Month, we are featuring content from newly processed collections from our archive. This week, it is time to talk travel!

Georgia O’Keeffe enjoyed traveling not only within the United States, but also around the world. In a newly processed collection, the Georgia O’Keeffe / Alfred Stieglitz Papers, we get a special snapshot of one trip in particular: her 1960 tour of Asia with the Donald L. Ferguson travel company. A thorough itinerary shows not only the cities visited on the tour but also planned stops within each city, while the guest list tells us something of O’Keeffe’s fellow travelers. Receipts, maps, and other ephemera flesh out a rich story of sightseeing, souvenirs, and even boxing matches.

Receipt for gift to Alexander Girard from Georgia O'Keeffe purchased in Tokyo, Japan.

To learn more about this collection and its contents, view the finding aid!

07/05/2021
profile-icon Tori Duggan

Announcing! - -  Guide to Georgia O'Keeffe & Cooking

Georgia O’Keeffe’s taste and quality of touch extended to her preference for foods and cooking. Learn about her interest in cooking in this new guide! 

 

Screenshot for the guide Cooking

 

06/30/2021
profile-icon Liz Ehrnst

 "O’Keeffe was at once global and insistently, radically local. She embraced what she termed the 'wideness and wonder of the world' and was entirely comfortable making her own place within it, however remote."
— Cody Hartley, Director of the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum

In this newly published catalogue, Georgia O’Keeffe, a survey of O’Keeffe’s career and life is presented complete with large color plates of works paired with descriptions and quotes from the artist. The book features key texts by Marta Ruiz del Árbol, Ariel Plotek, Didier Ottinger and Catherine Millet, and also contains a technical studies section with contributions by Dale Kronkright, Marta Palao, Andrés Sánchez Ledesma, and Susana Pérez. Photographs and images of archival material visually tell the story of O’Keeffe’s life and details of O’Keeffe’s paintings provide insight into her artistic process. A well-illustrated biography and useful bibliography round out the book.

Georgia O’Keeffe was published to accompany the first Georgia O’Keeffe retrospective in Spain on view at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza from April 20 to August 8, 2021. The exhibition is organized by the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, the Centre Pompidou, and the Fondation Beyeler, in partnership with the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. After Madrid, the exhibition will travel to Paris and Basel. 

Learn more about the exhibition and O’Keeffe at Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza online, which includes a virtual tour of the exhibition, a related interactive magazine, O'Keeffe inspired music playlists, and videos about O'Keeffe's artistic practice.

Georgia O'Keeffe's Homes in Northern New Mexico

This guide offers a brief introduction to O'Keeffe's homes in New Mexico and a recommended reading list to learn more. 

 

Screenshot of the homepage for the library guide Georgia O'Keeffe's Homes in Northern New Mexico

 


O'Keeffe's Abiquiú Home 

Use this guide to learn more about O'Keeffe's Abiquiú home and garden. This guide was a collaboration between the Research Collections and Services team and Giustina Renzoni, Historic Site Manager. 

 

Screenshot of the homepage to the library guide O'Keeffe's Abiquiu Home.

 

02/18/2021
profile-icon Tori Duggan

On February 16, 2021, Amy Von Lintel presented O'Keeffe's Wartime Letters and highlighted several publications. (Check back for a link to the recording!) Use WorldCat to find these in a library near you!

If you have questions please let us know! 

 

Cover ArtGeorgia O'Keeffe's Wartime Texas Letters by Amy Von Lintel; Bonney MacDonald (Foreword by)
Call Number: N6537.O39 A3 2020
ISBN: 9781623498498
Publication Date: 2020

 

Cover ArtMy Faraway One: selected letters of Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz by Sarah Greenough (Editor)
Call Number: N6537.O39 A3 201
ISBN: 9780300166309
Publication Date: 2011
The first extensive publication from the extraordinary archive of private correspondence between two of this country's most famous artists. This long-awaited volume features some 650 letters, carefully selected and annotated by leading photography scholar Sarah Greenough. In O'Keeffe's sparse and vibrant style and Stieglitz's fervent and lyrical manner, the letters describe how they met and fell in love in the 1910s; how they carved out a life together in the 1920s; how their relationship nearly collapsed during the early years of the Depression; and how it was reconstructed in the late 1930s and early 1940s. At the same time, the correspondence reveals the creative evolution of their art and ideas; their friendships with many of the most influential figures in early American modernism.

 

Cover ArtLetters Like the Day by Jennifer Sinor
Call Number: N6537.O39 S56 2017
ISBN: 9780826357830
Publication Date: 2017

 

Cover ArtGeorgia o'Keeffe: Watercolors by Georgia O'Keeffe (Artist); Amy Von Lintel (Text by)
Call Number: ND237.O5 A4 2016
ISBN: 9781942185048
Publication Date: 2016
01/29/2021
profile-icon Tori Duggan

Cover Art

Georgia O'Keeffe's Wartime Texas Letters by Amy Von Lintel; Bonney MacDonald (Foreword by)
Call Number: N6537.O39 A3 2020
Publication Date: 2020

Review:

"Von Lintel’s commentaries help the reader feel O’Keeffe’s love of life, love of personal freedom and how the approaching war influenced her thinking."

It’s a wonderful life: Two authors examine Georgia O’Keeffe’s years in West Texas, NM and influences on her art / by David Steinberg, Albuquerque Journal, December 6, 2020

 

Learn More:

Amy Von Lintel discusses her book and discoveries on C-SPAN.

 

01/13/2021
profile-icon Liz Ehrnst

letter from O'Keeffe to Stieglitz July 18 1937Congratulations to the Library of Congress for reaching their December 2020 goal to make available online the Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz Correspondence and Related Material collection. The collection contains 157 items (618 digital images) consisting mostly of letters written by Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz to their friend Henwar Rodakiewicz dating from 1929 to 1947. Rodakiewicz was a filmmaker, screenwriter, and director, and was best known for his documentary films such as Land of enchantment : Southwest U.S.A. featuring O'Keeffe at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico.

The materials were acquired by the Library of Congress by purchase and gift in October 2018.

Read more about the collection at the Library of Congress.

Explore the collection online through the finding aid to the archival collection with links to the digital content.

12/14/2020
profile-icon Liz Ehrnst

In the recently published book, Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life Well Lived, photographer Malcolm Varon captures Georgia O'Keeffe at her homes and in the New Mexico landscape just before her ninetieth birthday. O'Keeffe appears relaxed and familiar with Varon having selected him to photograph her works of art starting in 1969. 

The book features over sixty color photographs and includes Varon's written reflections on his relationship with O'Keeffe, a forward by Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Director, Cody Hartley, and an introduction by O'Keeffe scholar, Barbara Buhler Lynes.

Purchase your copy from the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum store today.

 

11/12/2020
profile-icon Tori Duggan

Roxana Robinson's Georgia O’Keeffe: A Life, originally published in 1989, was one of the first O’Keeffe biographies to use sources previously unavailable during O’Keeffe’s lifetime. In the 30 years since its original release, it has remained a popular title for understanding O'Keeffe's life and art. This updated and expanded edition (available now!) features a new preface by Robinson setting O’Keeffe in artistic context, and never before published letters between O’Keeffe and Arthur Macmahon from 1915 – 1938. 


A Conversation with Roxana Robinson

Roxana Robinson in conversation with Nancy Scott, professor of fine arts at Brandeis University and an O’Keeffe scholar. 

Webinar Recording


Learn More:

Find the updated and expanded edition a library near you! 

New edition available in the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Store!

"How I Met the Reclusive Georgia O'Keeffe: The Story of Two Encounters - One in Life, the Other on the Page" by  Roxana Robinson for the New Yorker, 2020

 

 

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