GEORGIA O’KEEFFE. The House I Live In, 1937. / Courtesy Yale University Art Museum.
The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico, has become an important benchmark of American art. The museum, opened in 1997, is dedicated to protecting the artistic legacy of Georgia O‘Keeffe, an American artist who lived from 1887 to 1986. It contains her work, historical documents, a research center and education programs that contribute to academic discourse and inspire diverse audiences. The museum’s collection is comprised of more than 3000 pieces. To date, the work of more than 140 artists such as Arthur Dove, Sherri Levine, Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol have been exhibited at this institution.
→ 1. Georgia O’Keeffe on the Patio, 1944. → 2. O’Keeffe Hitching a Ride to Abiquiu, 1944. / Photographs by Maria Chabot.
Presently and until May 2013, visitors can view the exhibition entitled Georgia O’Keeffe and the Faraway: Nature and Image, whose objective it is to demonstrate how the beauty and elegance of her work was influenced by the intimacy of her experiences, and the contact with nature, during her travels throughout the American Southwest. Her garden, the desert and boat rides are highlighted in her paintings and in photographs taken by friends. Her exquisite abstract works with trademark subjects like flowers, stones, shells, bones and other forms from nature, which are quintessentially O’Keeffe, are represented in the paintings of this impressive collection.
The Museum has become a place of pilgrimage since the launch of a unique new program that allows artists to spend a day in the gardens of the O’Keeffe residence, and in certain key places in the Chama Valley, where the artist frequently painted. A maximum of only ten people are allowed in four-hour sessions per day. The cost to register is $700 a day (without any access to the house), and the few people fortunate enough to have participated thus far have described it as “a magical experience.”■
Ghost Ranch Patio, Looking South, 2010. / Photograph by Paul Hester and Lisa Hardaway. ■
