First exhibition to examine the artist’s underrecognized urban landscapes
“Georgia O’Keeffe: ‘My New Yorks’” Oct. 25, 2024-Feb. 16, 2025
ATLANTA, July 23, 2024 — Famed for her images of flowers and Southwestern landscapes, American artist Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986) spent several years of her prolific career exploring the built environment of New York City with brush in hand. This fall, the High Museum of Art will be the exclusive venue in the Southeastern United States to present “Georgia O’Keeffe: ‘My New Yorks’” (Oct. 25, 2024-Feb. 16, 2025). Featuring approximately 100 works across a range of media including paintings, drawings, pastels and photographs, the exhibition is the first to seriously examine how O’Keeffe’s urban landscapes fit within the diverse context of her art.
Organized by the Art Institute of Chicago, the exhibition establishes these works not as outliers or as anomalous to O’Keeffe’s practice but as entirely integral to her modernist investigation in the 1920s — from her abstractions and still lifes at Lake George in upstate New York and beyond to her works upon arriving in the Southwest in 1929.
“Most of our visitors likely know O’Keeffe best for her floral paintings and works focused on the American Southwest, including her 1919 painting ‘Red Canna,’ one of the most visited works in our collection,” said the High’s Director Rand Suffolk. “This exhibition offers the wonderful opportunity to highlight this important, but perhaps less recognized period of O’Keeffe’s artistic life and demonstrate how her ‘New Yorks’ exemplify her innovation as a Modernist.”
In 1924, O’Keeffe and her husband, photographer Alfred Stieglitz, moved to New York City’s newly built Shelton Hotel, then the tallest residential skyscraper in the world. Its soaring heights inspired a five-year period of energetic experimentation, across media, scale, subject matter, form and perspective. She created street-level compositions capturing the city’s monumental skyscrapers from below and suspended views looking down from her 30th-floor apartment. She called these works her “New Yorks” and through them investigated the dynamic potential of New York’s cityscape — the organic and the inorganic, the natural and the constructed.
These New York paintings are essential in understanding how O’Keeffe became the artist we know today. For this reason, the exhibition includes a significant portion of the artist’s New York paintings alongside select works that highlight her varied subject matter, including shells, flowers, abstractions and landscapes. This integration underscores how O’Keeffe centered her New York works in her innovative and experimental modernist investigation of form, line and color — an approach she continued upon her arrival in the Southwest. Additionally, the exhibition includes photographs by Stieglitz from the Shelton and other Manhattan high-rises, exploring the productive artistic dialogue that developed between them as each was inspired by their powerfully new urban environment.
The exhibition is curated by the Art Institute’s Sarah Kelly Oehler and Annelise K. Madsen. The accompanying richly illustrated catalogue features a series of essays that present new scholarship and viewpoints on this formative group of works.
“Georgia O’Keeffe: ‘My New Yorks’” was first on view at the Art Institute of Chicago in the summer of 2024 and will be presented at the High on the Second and Skyway Levels of the Anne Cox Chambers Wing.
Exhibition Organization and Support
“Georgia O’Keeffe: ‘My New Yorks’” is organized by the Art Institute of Chicago. This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and Humanities and is made possible by Premier Exhibition Series Sponsor Delta Air Lines, Inc.; Premier Exhibition Series Supporters Mr. Joseph H. Boland, Jr., Harry Norman Realtors, wish Foundation; Benefactor Exhibition Series Supporters Robin and Hilton Howell; Ambassador Exhibition Series Supporters Loomis Charitable Foundation, Mrs. Harriet H. Warren; Contributing Exhibition Series Supporters Farideh and Al Azadi, Mary and Neil Johnson, Mr. and Mrs. Baxter Jones, Megan and Garrett Langley, Margot and Danny McCaul, Wade A. Rakes II and Nicholas Miller, Belinda Stanley-Majors and Dwayne Majors; Generous support is also provided by Alfred and Adele Davis Exhibition Endowment Fund, Anne Cox Chambers Exhibition Fund, Barbara Stewart Exhibition Fund, Dorothy Smith Hopkins Exhibition Endowment Fund, Eleanor McDonald Storza Exhibition Endowment Fund, The Fay and Barrett Howell Exhibition Fund, Forward Arts Foundation Exhibition Endowment Fund, Helen S. Lanier Endowment Fund, John H. and Wilhelmina D. Harland Exhibition Endowment Fund, Katherine Murphy Riley Special Exhibition Endowment Fund, Margaretta Taylor Exhibition Fund, RJR Nabisco Exhibition Endowment Fund, USI Insurance Services.
About the High Museum of Art
Located in the heart of Atlanta, the High Museum of Art connects with audiences from across the Southeast and around the world through its distinguished collection, dynamic schedule of special exhibitions and engaging community-focused programs. Housed within facilities designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architects Richard Meier and Renzo Piano, the High features a collection of more than 19,000 works of art, including an extensive anthology of 19th- and 20th-century American fine and decorative arts; major holdings of photography and folk and self-taught work, especially that of artists from the American South; burgeoning collections of modern and contemporary art, including paintings, sculpture, new media and design; a growing collection of African art, with work dating from prehistory through the present; and significant holdings of European paintings and works on paper. The High is dedicated to reflecting the diversity of its communities and offering a variety of exhibitions and educational programs that engage visitors with the world of art, the lives of artists and the creative process. For more information about the High, visit www.high.org.
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