Georgia O'Keeffe and Texas
Watercolors and other works created in Texas
Light Coming on the Plains No. I, 1917. Image courtesy of the Amon Carter Museum.
The most complete list of all the works of art that O'Keeffe created while living in Texas can be found in Georgia O'Keeffe: Catalogue Raisonne by Barbara Buhler Lynes. Almost all of O'Keeffe's life-long body of work, over 2,000 objects, is included and arranged in order chronologically. When possible, each description details where and when the piece was created.
O'Keeffe lived in Amarillo, Texas from 1912 to 1914, but the Catalogue Raisonne has very few works listed for those years. Most were probably lost or destroyed. Except for Untitled (Portrait of Dorothy True), also known as Lady with Red Hair, it is unclear if any of the items listed were created when she was teaching art in the Amarillo public schools.
There are approximately 125 objects that date from the summer of 1916, when O'Keeffe moved to Canyon, Texas, until the summer of 1918, when she moved to New York City. These include works she created in Colorado and the San Antonio area. It is not known how much art from 1916 to 1918 did not survive after the move to New York.
"When I knew I was going to stay in New York, I sent for things I had left in Texas. They came in a barrel and among them were all my old drawings and paintings. I put them in with the wastepaper trash to throw away and that night when Stieglitz and I came home after dark the paintings and drawings were blowing all over the street. We left them there and went in. But I remember a large watercolor of many hollyhocks sticking out of a big wastecan." Georgia O'Keeffe by Georgia O'Keeffe. New York: Viking Press, 1976, unpaginated, text accompanying Plate 16.
Examples of her work listed below have online images available to view.
- Untitled (Horse), 1914 .
- Oil on cardboard
- Georgia O'Keeffe Museum
- Untitled (Horse) from the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Collections Online.
- A sample of her work from 1914, not necessarily a work created in Texas.
- Evening, 1916.
- Watercolor on paper
- Georgia O'Keeffe Museum
- Evening from the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Collections Online.
- Morning Sky with Houses, 1916.
- Watercolor and graphite on paper
- Georgia O'Keeffe Museum
- Morning Sky with Houses from the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Collections Online.
- Train at Night in the Desert, 1916.
- Watercolor and pencil on paper
- Museum of Modern Art, New York
- Train at Night in the Desert from MoMA.
- (Note: a 1916 charcoal drawing of the same title, but different style was O'Keeffe's first sale.)
- Train at Night in the Desert, 1916.
- Watercolor on paper
- Collection of the Amarillo Museum of Art
- Train at Night in the Desert courtesy of AMoA.
- Sunrise and Little Clouds, 1916.
- Watercolor on paper
- Georgia O'Keeffe Museum
- Sunrise and Little Clouds from the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Collections Online.
- House with Tree, Red, 1916.
- Watercolor on rice paper
- Collection of the New Mexico Museum of Art, Gift of the Estate of Georgia O'Keeffe, 1993
- House with Tree, Red courtesy of the New Mexico Museum of Art.
- No. 15 Special, 1916/1917.
- Charcoal on paper
- Philadelphia Museum of Art
- No. 15 Special from the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
- Drawing XIII (No. 13 Special), 1916/1917?
- Charcoal on paper
- Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Drawing XIII from MoMA Heilbrun Timeline of Art History
- O'Keeffe mistakenly dated the work as 1915. She did not live in Texas in 1915.
- Roof with Snow, 1917.
- Watercolor on paper
- Collection of the Amarillo Museum of Art
- Roof with Snow courtesy of AMoA.
- Chicken in Sunrise, 1917 .
- Watercolor on paper
- Milwaukee Art Museum
- Chicken in Sunrise from the Milwaukee Art Museum.
- Nude Series, 1917.
- Watercolor on paper
- Georgia O'Keeffe Museum
- Nude Series from the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Collections Online.
- Nude Series XII, 1917.
- Watercolor on paper
- Georgia O'Keeffe Museum
- Nude Series XII from the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Collections Online.
- Untitled (Abstraction/Portrait of Paul Strand), 1917.
- Watercolor on paper
- Private collection
- Thumbnail from the Art Inventories Catalog, Smithsonian Institution Research Information System. Click on image to enlarge.
- Portrait - W - III, 1917 .
- Watercolor on paper
- Georgia O'Keeffe Museum
- Portrait - W - III from the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Collections Online.
- Evening Star No. III, 1917.
- Watercolor on paper
- Museum of Modern Art, New York
- Evening Star No. III from MoMA.
- Evening Star No. VI, 1917.
- Watercolor on paper
- Georgia O'Keeffe Museum
- Evening Star No. VI from the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Collections Online.
- Evening Star, 1917.
- Watercolor on paper
- Yale University Art Gallery
- Evening Star from Yale Digital Commons. Click on image to enlarge.
- Light Coming on the Plains No. I, 1917.
- Watercolor on paper (newsprint)
- Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas
- Light Coming on the Plains No. I courtesy of the Amon Carter Museum.
- Light Coming on the Plains No. II, 1917.
- Watercolor on paper (newsprint)
- Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas
- Light Coming on the Plains No. II courtesy of the Amon Carter Museum.
- Light Coming on the Plains No. III, 1917.
- Watercolor on paper (newsprint)
- Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas
- Light Coming on the Plains No. III courtesy of the Amon Carter Museum.
- House with Tree - Green, 1918.
- Watercolor and graphite on paper
- Georgia O'Keeffe Museum
- House with Tree - Green from the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Collections Online.
- The Flag, 1918.
- Watercolor on paper
- Milwaukee Art Museum
- The Flag from the Milwaukee Art Museum.
- Untitled (Woman with Black Shawl), 1918 .
- Watercolor and graphite on paper
- Georgia O'Keeffe Museum
- (Untitled (Woman with Black Shawl) from the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Collections Online.
- Tree and Picket Fence, 1918.
- Watercolor on paper
- Milwaukee Art Museum
- Tree and Picket Fence from the Milwaukee Art Museum.
