Library & Archive Exhibitions
On View
September 2024 - September 2025
Georgia O’Keeffe was connected to a community of avant-garde artists, authors, and critics who were committed to expressing and promoting a unique American identity in the early twentieth century. This exhibition provides an opportunity to explore the circle of influential modern artists and writers of which O’Keeffe belonged. Learn more...
Past Exhibitions
Georgia O'Keeffe famously said that she and words were not friends; however, this is untrue in many cases. The exhibition features select letters that reveal connections, passions, frustrations, and insight into her daily life, as well as writings penned and published by O'Keeffe about her life and work. Writing implements used by O'Keeffe and photographs are also on view. Learn more...
This exhibition featured publications from O’Keeffe’s personal library by notable writers whose works have advanced the cause for women’s equality or have a feminist viewpoint. For the purposes of this exhibition, a feminist viewpoint includes writings focused on the stories of women and social inequalities that women fought to change. Learn more...
S
eptember 2019 - February 2020
The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum’s archive contains a variety of materials related to Georgia O’Keeffe and her contemporaries. The materials selected for exhibition from the archives tell a story of O’Keeffe’s varied relationships and interests through the eyes of four individuals: Frances O’Brien, Edith Halpert, Laura Gilpin, and Louis Rosen. Learn more...
Little magazines are periodicals committed to avant-garde and noncommercial writings, which began in the late 19th century and continued through the 20th century. Georgia O’Keeffe owned an impressive collection of important and lesser known little magazines, some of which are on display in this exhibition. Learn more...
November 2018 - April 2019
The practice of retouching photographs to correct imperfections is as old as the medium itself, with a history dating back to the nineteenth century. Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946) was a particularly meticulous technician, and took pains to keep his film clean as he prepared to expose his negatives. After 1918, Stieglitz entrusted the finishing of his prints to Georgia O’Keeffe, a deft hand with her retouching tools. On view are objects and evidence relating to O’Keeffe’s photo retouching efforts.
August - November 2018
Throughout her life, Georgia O’Keeffe made travel a major priority. Although she traveled all over the world, gaining inspiration from her constant sense of curiosity. The items on display come predominately from her travel boxes, in which she collected maps, photographs, postcards, and other records of her trips around the world.
January 2017 - 2018
Aware of the atomic bomb development in the region, Georgia O’Keeffe had a subterranean fallout shelter built on her property in the early 1960s. The fallout entrance is located in the hill below her bedroom and studio and looks out onto the Chama River Valley, a landscape O’Keeffe studied and painted many times. Library and archives materials on view provide a glimpse into O’Keeffe’s custom built fallout shelter.
January 2017 - September 2018
Anita O'Keeffe Young (1891-1985) was a noted socialite and avid supporter of her sister, Georgia O’Keeffe, owning several important paintings by the artist. In 2016, the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum received a generous donation of over 100 letters from Georgia O’Keeffe to her sister Anita O’Keeffe Young written between the years 1929 to 1976.
January 2017 - September 2018
Georgia O’Keeffe had six siblings, four of which were younger sisters. While they all pursued their own paths, the sisters stayed in contact over the years through correspondence and cross-country travels to visit one another. Materials on display provide insight into the close sibling relationships.
October 2016 - August 2018
Among the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum’s most unique library and archive collections are Georgia O’Keeffe’s personal property including the libraries and archival materials from her homes in Ghost Ranch and Abiquiu. Items displayed highlight recent discoveries of modernist literature from O’Keeffe’s personal libraries.
April - October 2016
Georgia O’Keeffe had a large collection of cookbooks and even expressed an interest in writing her own cookbook. She also kept binders and folders of favorite recipes and food-related clippings. In this exhibition is a selection of material from her personal book collection and papers.
December 2015 - April 2016
In celebration of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Research Center’s 15th Anniversary, the library has on display a selection of books by alumni fellows related to research conducted at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Research Center.
December 2015 - April 2016
Featured in this exhibition are unique artists’ books from the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum’s library special collections.
December 2015 - April 2016
This exhibition features selections from the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum’s archives and library special collections relating to Georgia O’Keeffe’s artistic process.
December 2015 - April 2016
Georgia O’Keeffe became friends with the photograph Todd Webb in the 1940s, and they remained good friends until her death in 1986. Webb gave O’Keeffe two cameras: a Leica camera in the 1950s and a Polaroid camera in the 1960s. Webb explained that O’Keeffe used the cameras as a form of sketching and took great care in learning how they operated with his assistance. Library and archive materials on view relate to O’Keeffe’s interest in photography.
June - December 2015
Georgia O’Keeffe had shelves of books devoted to gardening in her personal libraries from her houses in Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch. In addition, O’Keeffe kept archival material, such as plant lists, in carefully organized files and boxes, and often tucked in her books. This exhibition highlights a selection of these materials.
March - December 2015
D. H. Lawrence materials make up several shelves in Georgia O'Keeffe's Abiquiu bookroom and represent a significant contribution to Georgia O’Keeffe’s book collection. This exhibition includes selected highlights of D.H. Lawrence material collected by O'Keeffe, including the "D.H. Lawrence box".
March - December 2015
John Marin (1870-1953) is recognized as one of the foremost American watercolorists. Georgia O’Keeffe and Marin had a lifelong friendship. In this exhibition are materials from O’Keeffe’s personal collection that span Marin’s artistic and literary career, and demonstrate her interest in his art, as well as their friendship.
March - December 2015
Georgia O’Keeffe was one of the most photographed women of the twentieth century. She actively participated in the creation of her own dramatic image, beginning in 1918, with the series of more than 300 photographs created by Alfred Stieglitz. The Museum’s photographic archive forms a valuable record of the many ways that O’Keeffe presented herself to the camera in formal portraits as well as in the unstudied snapshots with friends and family. The photographs also document O’Keeffe’s life in art, a creative practice that spanned the twentieth century and the rise of American Modernism.
October 2014 - February 2015
In 1956, Georgia O'Keeffe spent three months in Peru, traveling from the capital, Lima, to the ruins of Machu Picchu. She admired the archeological site but was equally enthralled with the mountainous terrain of the "fantastic country", and ended up sketching and painting several Peruvian landscapes. The library and archival materials displayed in this exhibition are from O’Keeffe’s personal collections relating to Peru.
October 2014 - February 2015
In 1951, Georgia O’Keeffe traveled to Mexico with poet Spud Johnson, photographer Eliot Porter, and his wife Aline. On this trip she visited with Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Miguel and Rose Covarrubias and traveled to various places. The library and archival materials displayed in this exhibition are from O’Keeffe’s personal collections relating to Mexico.
October 2014 - February 2015
Miguel Covarrubias (1904-1957) and Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986) first met in 1929 when they were both guests at the home of Mabel Dodge Luhan in Taos, New Mexico. Featured in this exhibition are materials from Covarrubias and his wife Rosa found in O’Keeffe’s personal library and archives, and relate to the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum exhibition, Miguel Covarrubias: Drawing a Cosmopolitan Line.
October 2014 - February 2015
Georgia O’Keeffe came to the remote high-desert plateau of northern New Mexico known as Ghost Ranch in 1934 and bought her first home there in 1940. The intense colors and forms of the landscape were a frequent subject of her art. Library and archive objects on view relate to the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum exhibition, Ghost Ranch Views, which features works of art by O’Keeffe depicting the Ghost Ranch landscape.
January - August 2014
The bookroom in Georgia O’Keeffe’s home in Abiquiú, New Mexico is a rare and unique collection of books, periodicals and ephemera that belonged to O’Keeffe and her husband, Alfred Stieglitz. Many publications contain original inscriptions, letters, or other found material. This exhibition highlights selected material from the bookroom.
January - August 2014
Library and archive objects on view relate to the exhibition, Georgia O’Keeffe: Abiquiú Views, at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. The exhibition explores “O’Keeffe’s endless fascination with the color and form of her surroundings in northern New Mexico; a landscape that inspired her art and the reconstruction of her home and studio in Abiquiú”.
January - August 2014
Georgia O'Keeffe and Ansel Adams met in New Mexico in 1929 and developed a lifelong friendship. This exhibition features two books Adams sent to O'Keeffe, including the photographic album Adams created to commemorate their 1938 Yosemite camping trip.
January - August 2014
Library and archive materials on view relate to the exhibition, Georgia O’Keeffe and Ansel Adams: The Hawai’i Pictures, at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. The exhibition “reveals how profoundly both artists were moved by their personal experiences in Hawai’i”.
Georgia O’Keeffe’s husband, Alfred Stieglitz, was an American photographer, writer, editor and art impresario. This exhibition features items from the library and archive collections to highlight Stieglitz’s role in art history and his relationship with O’Keeffe. Learn more...
