Santa Fe has grown a reputation of art and culture, even being recognized as the first UNESCO city of Folk Art. Everything from its cuisine to its art has become synonymous with the story of this old city. Some names have become more famous than others, but the unofficial emissary of the art scene in Santa Fe has always been Georgia O’Keeffe.Born in 1887 in Wisconsin, Georgia lived until the age of 98 and became one of the most important artists in American history. It was by chance, that she chose New Mexico as her second home in 1929 but it was the stunning landscape that inspired her until her death.

Georgia began her art studies at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1905 and continued on at the Art Students League of New York where she quickly mastered imitative realism. She was uninspired by this type of art and left the scene for four years when her love for art was rejuvenated at a summer course at the University of Virginia. It was there that she became familiar with the ideas of Arthur Wesley Dow. Dow was interest in the idea behind the art, the expression of one’s personal views and the idea of notan, the Japanese system of lights and darks.

As Georgia began to play around with these ideas, her work found its way to Alfred Stieglitz, a man famous for his photography. He was eager to get her work shown, offering her financial support and moving her to New York. Of course, they fell in love and were married in 1924. They would spend their winters and springs in New York and migrate north to Lake George for the summer and fall. In 1929, she went with a friend to Santa Fe and Albuquerque for the summer. She continued traveling there in the summers for the next twenty years when she finally moved there permanently, three years after Stieglitz’s death.
Georgia O’Keeffe

Georgia settled in Ghost Ranch, an area north of Abiquiu, which inspired her famous, colorful landscapes. As her work progressed, her popularity grew. She was given one-woman shows at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. She was in fact, the first woman to do so at MoMA.

Until the mid-1970s, when her eyesight began to fail her, Georgia continued to interpret the New Mexico landscape. She remained in the Abiquiu area until she moved to Santa Fe in 1984 to be closer to the hospital. When she died in 1986, she left a legend that included numerous artworks, photography and artifacts from her homes in New Mexico. Most of this was given to the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum that was established in 1997 in Santa Fe.

The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum is the first museum to be solely dedicated to a female artist. It is the most visited art museum in all of Santa Fe. Representing the art that Georgia herself expressed as “the wideness and wonder of the world as I live in it”, the museum incorporates over 1,100 pieces of work by O’Keeffe as well as over 1,500 other works representing American modernism.

Santa Fe is proud to be the home of The Georgia O’Keeffe museum, just as New Mexico was proud to host her all those years and provide her with such inspiration.

You can visit the museum at:
217 Johnson Street
Santa Fe, NM 87501
Any questions should be directed to (505)946-1000 or info@okeeffemuseum.org