Abiquiu Sand Hills and Mesa

Georgia O'KeeffeWW-1945-029396

1945·Oil on canvas·40.5 × 91.5 cm (15 15/16 × 36 in.)

<p>Although relatively small in scale, this long horizontal canvas conveys a striking sense of the panoramic views around Abiquiu, New Mexico. After visiting the area repeatedly, Georgia O’Keeffe bought a home there in 1945, and she painted this image of the sandy hills leading up to a massive flat-topped mesa the same year. The brilliant Southwestern light offered O’Keeffe immense visual clarity over many miles, and she translated her perception of distant geological formations—particularly the dark green mesa that dominates the top third of the composition— into an abstracted arrangement of stacked bands of color.</p>

Catalogue

Year: 1945
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 40.5 × 91.5 cm (15 15/16 × 36 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Georgia O'Keeffe

Artist

Georgia O'Keeffe

Painting

One of the most successful artists of the 20th century, Georgia O’Keeffe enjoyed a long and varied artistic career in which she introduced many new aesthetic perspectives and approaches in Modernism. Born in Wisconsin in 1887, she studied at the Art Institute of Chicago beginning in 1905 before taking teaching position in South Carolina, Virginia and Texas. She moved to New York City in 1918 at the age of 31 where she became part of the artistic milieu of her future husband photographer Alfred Stieglitz. In these years, she became fascinated with the fast pace of city life and produced paintings highlighting the city’s soaring skyscrapers as symbols of the modern world.

Georgia O'Keeffe Home and Studio

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