Art Appreciation Lecture Series 2017 Site Specific: The power of place

Georgia O’Keeffe and New Mexico

Denise Mimmocchi

31 May – 1 June 2017

Lecture summary: The name Georgia O’Keeffe has become inextricably linked with the landscapes of New Mexico in America’s Southwest. But it was not until 1929, by which time O’Keeffe was well established as a successful New York artist, that she initiated her regular visits to the region. She eventually permanently relocated to New Mexico in 1949.

Working in New Mexico prompted the invention of new forms in O’Keeffe’s art that contributed to a unique visual vocabulary of the region as well as of the modern America.

This lecture examines the extraordinary body of work that O’Keeffe produced from New Mexico and how her experience of living in the region transformed both her practice and her artistic persona.

Slide list:

All works listed are by Georgia O’Keeffe

1. Black Cross with Stars and Blue, 1929, oil on canvas, Private collection 2. Black Mesa Landscape, New Mexico/ Out of the back of Marie’s II 1930 oil on canvas, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe 3. Cow’s Skull, Red White and Blue, 1931, oil on canvas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 4. , 1926, oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 5. Series 1, 1919, oil on canvas, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe 6. The Shelton with Sunspots, N.Y., 1926, oil on canvas, Art Institute of Chicago 7. Dead Rabbit and Copper Pot, 1908, oil on canvas, Art Students League, New York 8. Evening Star No. VI, 1917, watercolour, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe 9. Series I – from the Plains, 1919, oil on canvas, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe 10. Special No. 2, 1915, charcoal on paper, National Gallery of Art, Washington 11. Special No. 9, 1915, charcoal on paper, The Menil Collection, Houston 12. Petunia No. 2 , 1924, oil on canvas, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe 13. Black Hollyhock, Blue Larkspur, 1929, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 14. , 1924, oil on canvas, University of Arizona Museum of Art 15. Flower Abstraction, 1924, oil on canvas, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York 16. Corn No. 2, 1924, oil on canvas, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe 17. Series 1, No. 10, 1920, oil on canvas, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe 18. Music, Pink and Blue No. 2, 1918, oil on canvas, Whitney Museum of American Art 19. Blue Flower, 1918, pastel of paper, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe 20. Radiator Building – Night, New York, 1927, oil on canvas, Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Arkansas 21. New York Street Scene with Moon, 1921, oil on canvas, Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Madrid 22. , 1929, oil on canvas, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford

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23. Black Cross with Red Sky, 1929, oil on canvas, private collection 24. Taos Pueblo, 1929, oil on canvas, Eiteljorg Museum of American Indian and Western Art, West Palm Beach 25. Ranchos Church no. 2, 1929, oil on canvas, The Phillips Collection, Washington, 26. Church Steeple, 1930, oil on canvas, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, New Mexico 27. Bear Lake, New Mexico, 1930, oil on canvas, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, New Mexico 28. Grey Blue and Black – Pink Circle 1929, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art 29. Back of Marie’s No. 4, 1931, oil on canvas, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe 30. Grey Hills, 1941, oil on canvas, Indianapolis Museum of Art 31. Untitled (Red and Yellow Cliffs) 1940, oil on canvas, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe 32. Mesa and Road East 1952, oil on canvas, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe 33. From the White Place 1940, oil on canvas, The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. 34. Dark Mesa with Pink Sky, 1930, oil on canvas, Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth 35. Purple Hills – 2/ Purple Hills No. II, 1934, oil on canvas, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe 36. Black Place, Grey and Pink, 1949, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe 37. Black Place III, 1940, oil on canvas, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe 38. Pedernal, 1941, oil on canvas; Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe 39. The House I Live In, 1937, oil on canvas, Yale University Collection 40. Deer Skull with Pedernal, 1936, oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 41. In the Patio III, 1948, oil on canvas, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe 42. In the Patio VII, 1950, oil on canvas, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe 43. Cottonwood Tree in Spring, 1943, oil on canvas, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe 44. Cottonwoods Near Abiquiú, 1950, oil on canvas, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe 45. Winter Cottonwoods East IV, 1954, oil on canvas, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe 46. Pelvis IV, 1944, oil on canvas, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe 47. From the Faraway, Nearby, 1937, oil on canvas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 45. Ram’s Head, Blue Morning Glory, 1938, oil on canvas, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe 46. Horse’s Skull with White Rose, 1931, oil on canvas, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe 47. Pink and Green 1960, oil on canvas, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe 48. Blue – A, 1959, oil on canvas, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe 49. Blue Black and Grey 1960, oil on canvas, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe 50. Winter Road I, 1963, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art Washington

Reference: Margot Brandlhuber and Michael Buhrs (eds) In the temple of the self: the artist’s residence as a total work of art, Hatje Cantz, Verlag, Ostfildern, 2013 (Carolyn Kastner’s chapter on O’Keeffe in New Mexico)

Wanda Corn The great American thing: modern art and national identity, 1915-1935, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1999

Lesley Harding and Denise Mimmocchi (eds) Making Modernism: O’Keeffe, Preston, Cossington Smith, Heide Museum of Modern art, Melbourne and Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2016

Barbara Buhler Lynes Georgia O’Keeffe, Stieglitz and the critics 1916 -1929, Ann Arbour, UMI Research Preston, Michigan, 1989

Barbara Buhler Lynes and Carolyn Kastner Georgia O’Keeffe in New Mexico, Architecture, Katsinam and the land, Museum of New Mexico Press and Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe, 2012

Georgia O’Keeffe Georgia O’Keeffe, Viking Press, New York, 1976

For access to all past lecture notes visit: https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/members/current-members/member-events/site-specific/