"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
- Visit the exhibitions webpage for more information about the exhibition and materials displayed
- Schedule a research appointment or self-guided tour of the library (for individuals or groups under 6 people)
- Schedule a guided tour of the library (for groups of 6 or more)
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.