Georgia O'Keeffe Museum

1997

Opened in 1997, eleven years after the artist's death

The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum opened on July 17, 1997, eleven years after the artist's death. It was founded in 1995 by the philanthropists Anne Windfohr Marion and John L. Marion, part-time residents of Santa Fe. The main building was designed by the architect Richard Gluckman, whose projects include the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.

The collection

The largest collection of her work, shown in rotation

The museum's collections are the largest repository of Georgia O'Keeffe's work and personal materials. The collection began with 140 paintings, watercolors, pastels and sculptures and now includes nearly 1,200 objects. Works rotate through the galleries during the year, so what hangs on the walls changes.

Nearly 1,200objects in the collection, up from 140 at the start

Abiquiu

Her home and studio in Abiquiu belong to the museum too

The museum also keeps O'Keeffe's Abiquiu Home and Studio, about 53 miles north of Santa Fe. It was her primary residence from the late 1940s to the end of her life, and local students tend its garden. Public tours are offered in season. Her other house, at Ghost Ranch, is not open to the public.

Her work

Flowers, skulls, hills and desert landscapes

O'Keeffe was called the "Mother of American modernism" and gained international recognition for her paintings of natural forms, particularly flowers, hills and desert-inspired landscapes. The collection ranges from her abstractions to large flower, skull and landscape paintings, and paintings of architectural forms, rocks, shells and trees.