GEORGIA O'KEEFFE 1887-1986 GHOST RANCH CLIFFS Measurements: 16 by 36in. Alternate Measurements: (40.6 by 91.4 cm) signed Georgia O'Keeffe on the backing oil on canvas Provenance: Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico Private Collection, La Jolla, California, 1980 Gerald and Kathleen Peters, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1981 Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico Acquired by the present owner from the above Exhibited: New York, Hirschl & Adler Galleries; Dallas, Texas, Gerald Peters Gallery, Georgia O'Keeffe: Selected Paintings and Works on Paper, April-July 1986, no. 25 Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix Art Museum; Tokyo, Japan, The Seibu Museum of Art; Japan, Seibu Hall, Otsu; Aspen, Colorado, Aspen Art Museum, Georgia O'Keeffe: Selected Paintings, April 1988-February 1989, no. 33 p. 78-9, illustrated in color Literature and References: Barbara Buhler Lynes, Georgia O'Keeffe: Catalogue Raisonne, vol. II, New Haven Connecticut, 1999, no. 1009, p. 635, illustrated in color Note: Georgia O'Keeffe visited New Mexico with Paul Strand's wife, Rebecca, in April of 1929, although she passed through on her way to Colorado in 1917. O'Keeffe's paintings of the Southwest soon became as well known as her magnified flower paintings, both of which were executed in O'Keeffe's unique American vernacular. The stark simplicity of the desert landscape appealed strongly to O'Keeffe's artistic sensibilities, and she moved permanently to Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu in 1949. According to Jan Garden Castro, O'Keeffe's adobe house at Ghost Ranch, 'felt more like home than any place she had ever lived' (The Art & Life of Georgia O'Keeffe, New York, 1985, p. 110). O'Keeffe transformed the residence into her studio, installing large windows and placing a ladder on the side of the house, allowing the artist to climb onto the roof and fully view the majestic mountains and canyons surrounding her. Located on a deserted road away from the main ranch, O'Keeffe's Ghost Ranch abode enabled her to paint the imposing views of Pedernal Mountain, the vast desert, and the red-orange cliffs of New Mexico in a highly personal environment. Ms. Castro writes, 'On the other side of her house is a canyon surrounded by a semicircular cliff face about one hundred feet high, with a chimney-shaped cliff at one end. Layers of white, yellow, ochre, orange, and red rock indicate Precambrian granites from the Summerville, Morrison, and Dakota periods, dating back to the first geological age, the Paleozoic Era. The land's awe-inspiring old age was transformed into agelessness before the original eye of O'Keeffe. At dawn and dusk, the cliffs' towering rainbow colors extend to touch the sky. For O'Keeffe, the sunsets were beautiful to watch but too sentimental to paint; the sky would always be her version of robin's egg blue, sky blue, eternal blue' (The Art & Life of Georgia O'Keeffe, p.114).