Well, so much time, too much time, has passed since my last post. But when we returned to the US after having lived for ten years in Europe, it was a rather busy time of readjustment for me. There were quite a number of challenges with which to contend back in the United States, like Covid-19 and cataract surgeries, but also such simple issues as high-volume road traffic and the distances in a very large city. Truthfully, I still miss calmly tooling around Cognac, France, in my little electric Citrœn! For now, though, we are enjoying the cool nights and sunny days of higher elevations in Northern New Mexico for our Sommerfrische, summer vacation, a welcome respite from the great heat in Texas.

The other day, we drove down to Santa Fe and split up for separate activities. Husband went to visit several Navajo rug establishments, while I revisited the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. It’s been twelve years since my last visit. If that sounds like an AA statement, it’s true. Since we left Chicago in 2004, I’ve suffered from O’Keeffe withdrawal. There, I would pop in at the Art Institute at least a couple of times a week, and sit in front of my favorite painting, The Black Place, one of many paintings she did of the (elephant) buttes in the De-Na-Zin Wilderness at the eastern edge of the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico.

I first visited the brand-new O’Keefe Museum in Santa Fe when it had barely opened in the late 1990s with a very limited collection. Nevertheless, it was exciting to know that she now had a dedicated space to display her work for all to enjoy. My mom and I were on a road trip together then, and I remember our discussions about O’Keeffe’s large, in-your-face botanical paintings that made my mother distinctly uncomfortable, owing to their implied sexual connotations. Georgia O’Keeffe herself always denied any such parallels or intentions, but the self-appointed experts who interpreted her paintings insisted on knowing better, especially in the 1930s and 40s, when my mother was growing up, and it was always a strident male voice being the most insistent.

The museum has expanded considerably since my last visit there, which you can see here: https://photoleraclaudinha.com/2013/03/30/santa-fe-the-museum-carousel/.

Today, I’m just going to relish the galleries, but I will also try to present you with a brief chronology of Georgia O’Keeffe’s work as she transitioned from the Midwest to the East, and then on to the Southwest.

Like so many of the creators of modern art, or Modernist Art, Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986) was trained as a “conventional” artist of her time. She attended college and became an art teacher, while gradually developing her personal artistic expression. In this, she mirrored in particular the Swedish artist Hilma af Klint (1862-1944), a true guiding light for a number of her contemporaries, among them Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) and his partner Gabriele Münter (1877-1962) in Murnau, Bavaria, as well as Paul Klee (1879-1940), of whom we are especially fond, because his 1977 exhibit at the Guggenheim was our first date.

This little unfinished landscape is close to my heart. When my mom and I drove over from Taos to visit Abiquiú, O’Keeffe’s home, we slowly and deliberately cruised alongside the Chama River with its cottonwood trees showing this brilliantly yellow foliage.

In New Mexico, Georgia O’Keeffe’s life and creative spirit revolved around the local landscapes and everything one might find within these unique mesas and dry washes, like bleached bones, pebbles, rocks, fossils, desert plants, sunsets, clouds, and sometimes even snow, or parts of her own home.

She did, however, never lose her curiosity about other vistas. In 1959, O’Keeffe joined a package tour of East Asia and the South Pacific. Her later studio paintings of some of these foreign sites were based on the many sketches she brought home from the trip.

Lastly, I want to show you one of Georgia O’Keeffe’s emotional reflections after her ninetieth birthday party with her friend Esther.

Meanwhile, the museum had become quite crowded, so it was time to move on.

Below you see the pretty building across the street from the museum, quintessential Santa Fe!

Should you never have been in northern New Mexico, the following shows a few glimpses into the local natural wonders aside from O’Keeffe’s paintings, as seen from our rental place.