Georgia O’Keeffe: To See Takes Time

Museum of Modern Art 

April 9-August 12, 2023

The Museum of Modern Art presents Georgia O’Keeffe: To See Takes Time, the first exhibition to investigate the artist’s works on paper made in series. Using charcoal, watercolor, pastel, and graphite, she explored forms and phenomena—from abstract rhythms to nature’s cycles—across multiple examples. Some of these sequences also gave rise to related paintings, which will be installed alongside these works on paper. On view in MoMA’s third-floor south galleries from April 9 through August 12, 2023, the exhibition reveals a lesser-known side of this artist, foregrounding O’Keeffe’s persistently modern process on paper. 

Over 120 works created over more than four decades—including key examples from MoMA’s collection—demonstrate the ways in which O’Keeffe developed, repeated, and changed motifs that blur the boundary between observation and abstraction. Seen together, these works demonstrate how drawing in series allowed O’Keeffe to revisit and rework subjects throughout her career, and reveal the thoughtful material choices behind her resplendent compositions. 

The exhibition is organized by Samantha Friedman, Associate Curator, Department of Drawings and Prints, with Laura Neufeld, Associate Paper Conservator, The David Booth Conservation Department, and Emily Olek, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Drawings and Prints. Realized with the participation of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe. 

Though MoMA’s 1946 Georgia O’Keeffe exhibition was its first retrospective of a woman artist, the Museum has not had an exhibition devoted to the artist since. This exhibition is the first to reunite drawings that are most often seen individually, in order to illuminate O'Keeffe's innovative serial practice. 

In the formative years of 1915 to 1918, O’Keeffe made more works on paper than she would at any other time, producing her breakthrough series of charcoals and sequences in watercolor of abstract lines, organic landscapes, and nudes. While her practice turned increasingly toward canvas after this period, important series on paper reappeared—including flowers of the 1930s, portraits of the 1940s, and aerial views of the 1950s—all of which are included in this exhibition. 

“O’Keeffe’s works on paper are the perfect expression of her belief that ‘to see takes time,’” says associate curator Samantha Friedman. “She recognized the necessity of slowing down for her own vision, and, in turn, her sequences of drawings invite us to take time in looking.” 

Among the key works in the exhibition is the early charcoal No. 8 – Special (Drawing No. 8) (1916). O’Keeffe called some of her works “specials,” indicating her belief in their success; this drawing features a spiraling composition that would recur throughout the artist’s decades-long career. She once noted of this work, “I have made this drawing several times— never remembering that I had made it before—and not knowing where the idea came from,” emphasizing the seriality of her practice. 

Another highlight of the exhibition will be the first reunion of all eight watercolors in the Evening Star series (1917), whose luminous palette reflects O’Keeffe’s response to a Texas sky. Together, these works express how the artist’s development of an idea across multiple sheets mirrors the shifting forms and movement of nature itself. Tracing the course of a dramatic sunset, O’Keeffe transitions from discrete bands of color separated by areas of blank paper to fully bled areas of liquid pigment. 

Drawing X (1959), made the year O’Keeffe took a three-month trip around the world, was inspired by the views of the landscape she witnessed from a plane. One in a series of such charcoals that also led to subjectively colored paintings, this work offers a key example of the complex and subtle relationship between representation and abstraction within the artist’s project. 

PUBLICATION: The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue edited by Samantha Friedman, with essays by Friedman and Laura Neufeld. 180 pages, 200 color illustrations.

A revelatory new volume on the American modernist's lesser-known works on paper, reuniting many serial works for the first time

Recalling a charcoal she made in 1916, Georgia O'Keeffe later wrote, “I have made this drawing several times―never remembering that I had made it before―and not knowing where the idea came from.” These drawings, and the majority of O’Keeffe’s works in charcoal, watercolor, pastel and graphite, belong to series in which she develops and transforms motifs that lie between observation and abstraction. In the formative years of 1915 to 1918, she made as many works on paper as she would in the next 40 years, producing sequences in watercolor of abstract lines, organic landscapes and nudes, along with charcoal drawings she would group according to the designation “specials.” While her practice turned increasingly toward canvas in subsequent decades, important series on paper reappeared―including charcoal flowers of the 1930s, portraits of the 1940s and aerial views of the 1950s.

Published in conjunction with an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, this richly illustrated volume highlights the drawings of an artist better known as a painter, and reunites individual sheets with their contextual series to illuminate O’Keeffe’s persistently sequential practice.
Born in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986) first received critical attention when her breakthrough charcoal drawings were exhibited in New York in 1916. Two years later, she moved to the city to work full time on her art. Beginning in 1929, O’Keeffe spent summers in New Mexico, where she would relocate in 1949. The most famous female artist of her age, she thought of herself not as “the best woman painter” but as “one of the best painters.”

Images

Georgia O’Keeffe. Evening Star No. II, 1917. Watercolor on paper. 8 3/4 × 12″ (22.2 × 30.5 cm). Courtesy Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas. Photography by Dwight Primiano. © 2022 Georgia O’Keeffe Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 

Georgia O’Keeffe. Evening Star No.III, 1917. Watercolor on paper mounted on board. 8 7/8 x 11 7/8″ (22.7 x 30.4 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Mr. and Mrs. Donald B. Straus Fund, 1958. © 2022 Georgia O’Keeffe Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 

Georgia O’Keeffe. Evening Star, 1917. Watercolor on paper. 13 3/8 x 17 11/16” (34 x 45 cm). Yale University Art Gallery. The John Hill Morgan, B.A. 1893, LL.B. 1896, M.A. (Hon.) 1929, Fund, the Leonard C. Hanna, Jr., Class of 1913, Fund, and Gifts of Friends in Honor of Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr., B.A. 1960. © 2022 Georgia O’Keeffe Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 

Georgia O’Keeffe. No. 12 Special, 1916. Charcoal on paper. 24 x 19″ (61 x 48.3 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of The Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation, 1995. © 2022 The Museum of Modern Art / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 

Georgia O’Keeffe. No. 8 – Special (Drawing No. 8), 1916. Charcoal on paper. Sheet (Irregular): 24 1/2 × 18 7/8in. (62.2 × 47.9 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from the Mr. and Mrs. Arthur G. Altschul Purchase Fund. © 2022 Georgia O’Keeffe Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 

Georgia O’Keeffe. Special No.39, 1919. Charcoal on paper. 19 5/8 x 12 3/4″ (49.8 x 32.4 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of The Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation, 1995. © 2022 The Museum of Modern Art / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 

Georgia O’Keeffe. An Orchid, 1941. Pastel on paper mounted on board. 27 5/8 x 21 3/4″ (70.2 x 55.2 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Bequest of Georgia O’Keeffe, 1990. © 2022 Georgia O’Keeffe Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 

Georgia O’Keeffe. Drawing X, 1959. Charcoal on paper. 24 7/8 x 18 5/8″ (63.2 x 47.3 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller (by exchange), 1972. © 2022 Georgia O’Keeffe Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 

Georgia O’Keeffe. Train at Night in the Desert, 1916. Watercolor and pencil on paper. 11 7/8 x 8 7/8″ (30.3 x 22.5 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Acquired with matching funds from the Committee on Drawings and the National Endowment for the Arts, 1979. © 2022 Georgia O’Keeffe Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 

Georgia O’Keeffe. Eagle Claw and Bean Necklace, 1934. Charcoal on paper. 19 x 25 1/8″ (48.5 x 63.9 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Given anonymously (by exchange), 1936. © 2022 Georgia O’Keeffe Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 

Georgia O’Keeffe. It Was Yellow and Pink III, 1960. Oil on canvas, 40 × 30″ (101.6 × 76.2 cm). The Art Institute of Chicago. Alfred Stieglitz Collection, bequest of Georgia O’Keeffe. © 2023 Georgia O’Keeffe Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 

Georgia O’Keeffe. Blue Lines X, 1916. Watercolor and pencil on paper, 25 × 19″ (63.5 × 48.3 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1969. © 2023 Georgia O’Keeffe Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 

Georgia O’Keeffe. Over Blue, 1918. Pastel on paper
28 × 22″ (71.1 × 55.9 cm). Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester. Bequest of Anne G. Whitman. © 2023 Georgia O’Keeffe Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 

Georgia O’Keeffe. Untitled (Patio Door), c. 1946
Pencil on paper, 16 15/16 × 14″ (43 × 35.6 cm). Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe. Gift of The Burnett Foundation. © 2023 Georgia O’Keeffe Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 

Georgia O’Keeffe. Seated Nude XI, 1917. Watercolor on paper. 11 7/8 × 8 7/8″ (30.2 × 22.5 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Purchase, Mr. and Mrs. Milton Petrie Gift, 1981. © 2023 Georgia O’Keeffe Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 

Georgia O’Keeffe. Blue Hill No. II, 1916. Watercolor on paper, 8 7/8 × 11 15/16″ (22.5 × 30.3 cm). Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe. Gift of Dr. and Mrs. John B. Chewning. © 2023 Georgia O’Keeffe Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 

Georgia O’Keeffe. Beauford Delaney, 1943. Pastel on paper, 15 1/4 × 11 1/2″ (38.7 × 29.2 cm). Myron Kunin Collection of American Art, Minneapolis. © 2023 Georgia O’Keeffe Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 

Georgia O’Keeffe. Lightning at Sea, 1922. Pastel on paper, 19 × 25 1/4″ (48.3 × 64.1 cm). Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Gift of the William H. Lane Foundation. © 2023 Georgia O’Keeffe Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

http://press.moma.org/exhibition/georgia-okeeffe/