O'Keeffe in Williamsburg
A Re-Creation of the Artist’s First Public Exhibition in the South
June 23, 2001 - October 21, 2001

Between 1903 and 1905, Georgia O’Keeffe’s family lived in Williamsburg, Virginia, the home of The College of William and Mary. Some 30 years later, in May of 1938, in recognition of both O’Keeffe’s stature and her ties to Williamsburg, The College of William and Mary awarded O’Keeffe an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree. It was the first of many such awards she would receive from various institutions over the course of her career.

The fact that O’Keeffe received this degree has been well known and well documented in publications over the years. But what had been essentially unknown until recently was that, at the time of the award, William and Mary also sponsored a brief exhibition of nine O’Keeffe paintings on its campus—an event documented only in obscure College files and forgotten public records. O’Keeffe in Williamsburg was a re-creation of this "lost" exhibition, held at The College of William and Mary for five days in 1938 (May 4 – 9). It was inspired by the discovery in 1998 of a list of eight of the works included in the original exhibition.

This small, exquisite show is historically significant for several reasons. First, before the 1940s, Stieglitz rarely permitted O’Keeffe’s work to be seen in exhibitions outside those he organized, and he especially did not approve of her art being packed and shipped outside New York. Thus, in addition to being O’Keeffe’s first solo exhibition in the South, available evidence suggests that the William and Mary show was her only solo exhibition outside the state of New York before the 1940s. Second, the works Stieglitz loaned to William and Mary date from 1927 to 1937, a particularly important period in O’Keeffe’s career, and many have since become among her most well known, such asRed Poppy (1927), New York, Night (1928-29), Black Hollyhock Blue Larkspur (1930), and Deer’s Skull with Pedernal (1936).

Barbara Buhler Lynes, curator of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, was a consultant to the exhibition, and identified the nine pictures that were on view in 1938, eight of which had been loaned to The College of William and Mary by Alfred Stieglitz. She also wrote an essay for the exhibition catalogue.

O’Keeffe in Williamsburg was organized by The Muscarelle Museum of Art and was exhibited there January 27 through May 27, 2001. It was on view at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum June 23 through October 21, 2001.

The exhibition was made possible by a generous grant from The Burnett Foundation and MBNA America in Honor of Thomas A. Graves, Jr., President Emeritus of The College of William and Mary. Additional support has been provided by the National Endowment for the Arts; New Mexico Arts, a division of the Office of Cultural Affairs; and by the City of Santa Fe Arts Commission and the 1% Lodgers’ Tax.