Artistic Destination GEORGIA O’KEEFFE’S NEW MEXICO By Julie Catalano
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ew artists are as identified with a place as Georgia O’Keeffe is with New Mexico. Her landscapes and iconic still-life depictions embody the free and frontier spirit of the land like no other. As she herself explained: “When I got to New Mexico, that was mine. As soon as I saw it, that was my country. I’d never seen anything like it before, but it fitted to me exactly. It’s something that’s in the air, it’s different. The sky is different, the wind is different. I shouldn’t say too much about it because other people may be interested, and I don’t want them interested.” (Georgia O’Keeffe, film, Perry Miller Adato, producer and director.)
of the most significant artists of the 20th century lived, worked and created from the mid-1930s until her death in Santa Fe in 1986 at age 98. For every O’Keeffe devotee, history buff, art collector — or even the simply curious — here are three places in O’Keeffe’s beloved New Mexico not to be missed. Ghost Ranch Education and Retreat Center, Abiquiu. 877804-4678. ghostranch.org
Approximately 60 miles northwest of Santa Fe, the Ghost Ranch embodies the sweeping landscapes that inspired much of O’Keeffe’s art for more than four decades. Owned It was an ironic statement for the notoriously private and by the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, her Ghost often prickly artist, because now thousands of art lovers Ranch home — which she bought in 1940 -- is not open in general and O’Keeffe aficionados in particular flock to to the public, and she alternated residences between that “her” land every year, to see for themselves where one and her home in Abiquiu, about 15 minutes away. Tours September/October 2013 | On The Town 81