SANTA FE, N.M. – The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum is proud to announce that it will be offering a $2 admission discount to anyone presenting a valid ticket for the New Mexico Rail Runner Express between Oct. 12 and Nov. 30, 2009.

With the Rail Runner’s Santa Fe Depot station only a half–mile away from the museum, many visitors from Albuquerque, Los Lunas, Belen, Bernalillo and the rest of the middle Rio Grande valley have a more convenient way to visit the museum and experience Georgia O’Keeffe’s works for themselves.

“Opportunities for people to use the New Mexico Rail Runner Express continue to grow as more and more businesses and organizations create partnerships with the train,” said Lawrence Rael, executive director for the Mid-Region Council of Governments. “Georgia O’Keeffe was clearly a treasure for New Mexico, and it’s great to be able to associate the train with her legacy.”

The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum is located at 217 Johnson Street in Santa Fe, a short walk northwest of the Santa Fe Plaza.

ABOUT THE NEW MEXICO RAIL RUNNER EXPRESS

The New Mexico Rail Runner Express operates seven days a week between Belen and Santa Fe with 11 stations throughout the 100-mile corridor. The cost of a round trip day pass between Albuquerque and Santa Fe is only $8 on weekdays and $6 on weekends. Please visit nmrailrunner.com to see a current train schedule.

ABOUT THE GEORGIA O’KEEFFE MUSEUM

The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum is dedicated to perpetuating the artistic legacy of Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) and to the study and interpretation of American modernism. Located in Santa Fe, N.M., the museum’s collections, exhibits, research center, publications and education programs contribute to scholarly discourse and serve diverse audiences. The largest single repository of the artist’s work in the world, the museum’s collection includes nearly 1,200 O’Keeffe paintings, drawings and sculptures. It is the only museum in the world dedicated to an internationally known woman artist, and is the most visited art museum in New Mexico. For more information, visit www.okeeffemuseum.org.

# # #

SANTA FE, N.M – The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum announced today that legendary photographer Annie Leibovitz will be the guest of honor at its 2010 Women of Distinction Series event on March 6, 2010, at the Lensic Performing Arts Center in Santa Fe.

Leibovitz was selected in recognition for her 40 years of iconic work, which has included some of the most memorable, provocative and moving works, making her arguably the most well-known living artist in the photographic medium.

Of being recognized by the Women of Distinction Series, Leibovitz said, "Georgia O’Keeffe was one of the first artists I was aware of as a young person. Alfred Stieglitz’s photographs of O’Keeffe are especially important to me. They are some of the greatest portraits ever made. But it is O’Keeffe’s example as a working artist that makes her such an inspirational figure to so many of us. She set off on her own, did her own work. I’m honored to receive this award from the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum."

At the March event, Leibovitz will take those in attendance on a journey through some of her most famous photographs.

Richard B. Stolley, who has edited several photographic histories as a senior editorial advisor at Time Inc., will lead the event in a question-and-answer format with Leibovitz.

The 2010 Women of Distinction program is made possible by generous support from Century Bank and the Robert G. Weiss Family Foundation.

ABOUT THE WOMEN OF DISTINCTION SERIES

The Women of Distinction Series, established in 2007 during the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum’s 10th Anniversary Celebration, was established to honor women who, like O’Keeffe, have effectively realized themselves as women and professionals. Past honorees have included Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court Ruth Bader Ginsburg, journalist Gail Sheehy and activist Gloria Steinem.

Proceeds from this event will support the museum’s Art and Leadership Program for Girls. Over the past eleven years, this nationally recognized, award-winning program has reached over 2,000 girls through summer programs, as well as school and afterschool workshops. Youth identified as low-income and/or facing at-risk issues with a core interest in the arts are nominated by their teachers are eligible for the program. The multi-disciplinary programming includes workshops in the literary, performing and visual arts, all using Georgia O’Keeffe as an artistic role model. In 2008, the Art and Leadership Program was recognized by the White House with a Coming Up Taller Award.

ABOUT ANNIE LEIBOVITZ

Annie Leibovitz began her career as a photojournalist for Rolling Stone in 1970 while she was still a student at the San Francisco Art Institute. Her pictures have appeared regularly on magazine covers ever since, and her large and distinguished body of work encompasses some of the most well-known portraits of our time.

Leibovitz’s first major assignment was for a cover story on John Lennon. She became Rolling Stone magazine’s chief photographer in 1973, and by the time she left the magazine ten years later, she had shot one hundred and forty-two covers and published photo essays on scores of stories. Memorable Rolling Stone stories include her unforgettable accounts of the resignation of Richard Nixon and of the 1975 Rolling Stones tour.

In 1983, when she joined the staff of the revived Vanity Fair, she was established as the foremost rock music photographer and an astute documentarian of the social landscape. At Vanity Fair, and later at Vogue, she developed a large body of work—portraits of actors, directors, writers, musicians, athletes, and political and business figures, as well as fashion photographs—that expanded her collective portrait of contemporary life.

In addition to her editorial work, she has created several influential advertising campaigns, including her award-winning portraits for American Express and the Gap.

Several collections of Leibovitz’s work have been published. They include Annie Leibovitz: Photographs (1983); Annie Leibovitz: Photographs 1970–1990 (1991); Olympic Portraits (1996); Women (1999), in collaboration with Susan Sontag; American Music (2003); and A Photographer’s Life, 1990-2005 (2006). In 2008, she published Annie Leibovitz at Work, a first-person commentary on her career, from her coverage of the resignation of Nixon to the commissioned portraits of Queen Elizabeth II. Exhibitions of her work have appeared at museums and galleries all over the world.

Leibovitz is the recipient of many honors. In 2006 she was decorated a Commandeur in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government. The previous year, in a compilation of the forty top magazine covers of the past forty years by the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME), she held the top two spots (number one for the photograph of John Lennon and Yoko Ono taken for Rolling Stone the day Lennon was shot, and number two for the pregnant Demi Moore in Vanity Fair). In 2009, she received the International Center of Photography’s Lifetime Achievement Award and was also named the first recipient of ASME’s Creative Excellence Award. Leibovitz has been designated a Living Legend by the Library of Congress.

EVENT INFORMATION

The 2010 Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Women of Distinction Series event honoring Annie Leibovitz will take place March 6, 2010, 7 p.m., at the Lensic Performing Arts Center in Santa Fe.

Tickets to the event will go on sale in December to Georgia O'Keeffe Museum members, donors and Friends of the Women of Distinction Series. They will then go on sale to the general public in January 2010. Tickets are $35-$250 and will be available at TicketsSantaFe.org or 505-988-1234.

ABOUT THE GEORGIA O’KEEFFE MUSEUM

The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum is dedicated to perpetuating the artistic legacy of Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) and to the study and interpretation of American modernism. Located in Santa Fe, N.M., the museum’s collections, exhibits, research center, publications and education programs contribute to scholarly discourse and serve diverse audiences. The largest single repository of the artist’s work in the world, the museum’s collection includes nearly 1,200 O’Keeffe paintings, drawings and sculptures. It is the only museum in the world dedicated to an internationally known woman artist, and is the most visited art museum in New Mexico. For more information, visit www.okeeffemuseum.org.

# # #

SANTA FE, N.M – The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum announced today that University of Pittsburgh professor Terry Smith is the 2009 winner of the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Research Center Book Prize for his 1993 book, Making the Modern: Industry, Art, and Design in America.

Smith is the inaugural winner of the prize, awarded every three years to the author of a book on some aspect of American modernism published within the past 25 years. Smith’s book was selected from a field that included over 60 titles submitted for consideration.

“I am absolutely delighted that my book has been awarded this prize,” Smith said. “It is a great honor to be recognized in this way by my peers on the committee, and by an institution that has become the center for the study of modernism in the United States. I appreciate the generosity of spirit expressed in giving the inaugural award in an American studies field to an Australian. It exemplifies what is best about this country.”

Smith’s book is a comprehensive study of the impact of mass production and mass consumption on the whole range of American visual culture, from factory architecture through photography and art to industrial design. It includes chapters on the Ford plants in Detroit, the Farm Security Administration photographers during the Depression, Life magazine, Mexican visitors Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, and the New York World’s Fair of 1939-40. The book was published in 1993 by the University of Chicago Press and is still in print.

Barbara Buhler Lynes, curator of the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum and the Emily Fisher Landau director of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Research Center, added that Smith’s book was chosen because of its “excellence of writing and scholarship, its originality and its outstanding and multi-faceted exploration of the emergence and flourishing of modernism as a phenomenon in American art and culture. Smith’s book explores this fascinating development in new and thought-provoking ways which greatly contribute to our understanding of American modernism.”

The committee of jurors for the book prize said they chose Smith’s book as the “Outstanding contribution to the study of American modern art that reflects the mission of the [Georgia] O’Keeffe Museum Research Center – to expand awareness of the phenomenon known as modernism, an elusive and confusing term that is most broadly defined as a phenomenon in American art and culture that has been ongoing since the 1890s.”

ABOUT TERRY SMITH

Australian Terry Smith is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Contemporary Art History and Theory in the Henry Clay Frick Department of the History of Art and Architecture at the University of Pittsburgh. From 1994 to 2001, he was Power Professor of Contemporary Art and Director of the Power Institute at the University of Sydney’s Foundation for Art and Visual Culture.

He was a member of the Art and Language group in New York and a founder of Sydney-based Union Media Services. He was a founding board member of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney and currently a board member at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. In 1996, he was elected a fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and a membré titulaire of the Comité International d’Histoire de l’Art.

Smith’s major research interests are world contemporary art, including its institutional and social contexts; the histories of multiple modernities and modernisms; the history and theory of contemporaneity; and the historiography of art history and art criticism. He has special expertise in international contemporary art, American visual cultures since 1870 and Australian art since settlement, including Aboriginal art.

ABOUT THE BOOK PRIZE

Established in 2009 to honor the museum’s commitment to the study of American modernism, the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Research Center Book Prize will be awarded every three years to the author of a book on some aspect of American modernism published in the past 25 years. A cash award of $5,000 accompanies the prize.

The committee of jurors for the prize was made up of distinctive scholars of American modernism: Michael Leja, professor of American Art at the University of Pennsylvania; Nancy Mowll Matthews, curator at the Williams College Museum of Art; Patricia Hills, professor of art history at Boston University; and Jonathan Fineberg, professor of art history at the University of Illinois and director of Illinois at the Phillips at the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C.

The committee also awarded two honorable mentions: University of Notre Dame Professor of Art History Kathleen Pyne’s Art and the Higher Life: Painting and Evolutionary Thought in Late Nineteenth-Century America (University of Texas Press, 1996), and Mixed Blessings: New Art in a Multicultural America (The New Press, 1990) by writer, artist, curator and Galisteo, N.M., resident Lucy R. Lippard.

The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Research Center Book Prize is sponsored by the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum National Council, the Thaw Charitable Trust, the Michael S. Engl Family Foundation, Dr. and Mrs. Barry G. King Jr., and several anonymous donors.

The prize will be awarded again in 2012.

ABOUT THE GEORGIA O’KEEFFE MUSEUM RESEARCH CENTER

Founded in 2001 as a component of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Research Center supports scholarship on American modernism (1890s-present) in art history, architectural history and design, literature, music and photography. Its competitive scholarship program awards six stipends annually to qualified candidates, and it sponsors lecture and publication programs. The Research Center collects and houses library and archival materials that relate to the art and life of Georgia O'Keeffe and her contemporaries, which are available to in-house and visiting scholars.

ABOUT THE GEORGIA O’KEEFFE MUSEUM

The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum is dedicated to perpetuating the artistic legacy of Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) and to the study and interpretation of American modernism. Located in Santa Fe, N.M., the museum’s collections, exhibits, research center, publications and education programs contribute to scholarly discourse and serve diverse audiences. The largest single repository of the artist’s work in the world, the museum’s collection includes nearly 1,200 O’Keeffe paintings, drawings and sculptures. It is the only museum in the world dedicated to an internationally known woman artist, and is the most visited art museum in New Mexico. For more information, visit www.okeeffemuseum.org.

# # #

SANTA FE, N.M – The Board of Directors of the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum is proud to announce the selection of Robert A. Kret as the museum’s new director. Effective Oct. 26, he becomes the museum’s third director since its inception in 1997, and succeeds George King, who departed July 31 after serving in the position for 11 years.

Kret comes to the Santa Fe-based museum after serving as the director of the Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga, Tenn. As director, he will be responsible for providing overall leadership and guidance for the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum’s programs and serving as liaison between the staff and board of directors.

“I am thrilled and honored to have the opportunity to work with the board and staff to lead the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum during the next phase of its development,” Kret said. “I look forward to joining the team of an institution with a national and international reputation that focuses on the work of an icon in American art and has the vision to expand the visitors’ understanding of modernism.”

"We are delighted to find someone of Rob's obvious talent and we are sure that he will be a great addition to the Santa Fe art community," said Anne Marion, chairwoman of the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Board of Directors.

Kret brings over 25 years of museum leadership experience to the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. Under his guidance at the Hunter Museum, the operating budget, the number of staff and total visitation doubled. That museum has also seen significant progress in changing the audience to better reflect the diversity of the Chattanooga community.

While at the Hunter, Kret led the expansion and renovation of the museum that earned numerous design awards and national acclaim. The building was designed by architect Randall Stout as part of Chattanooga’s 21st Century Waterfront Plan. He played an active role in the development of the Normal Park Museum Magnet School and is a strong advocate for the role of museums as partners in the education community. He also excels at developing and encouraging partnerships and collaborations. In partnership with the Tennessee Aquarium and the Creative Discovery Museum, the Hunter was recently recognized by the Lodestar Foundation as one of the best non-profit collaborations in the country.

Prior to serving at the Hunter Museum since 2000, Kret was director at the Miami University Art Museum in Oxford, Ohio, and the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum in Wausau, Wis. He was executive director of the Ella Sharp Museum in Jackson, Mich., and director of museums for the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities.

Kret began his career in museums in the 1980s at the Henry Ford Museum while an undergraduate at the University of Detroit. Holding a masters degree in museum studies from the State University of New York, Oneonta, he has served on numerous local and regional boards and is active with professional organizations such as the Association of Art Museum Directors and the American Association of Museums.

“The O’Keeffe has a lot to offer. There is an engaged, supportive and committed Board of Trustees and a very talented staff. It has a substantial collection, a proven track record in producing scholarly publications, a well-regarded research center, ambitious exhibitions and innovative education programs. All of this in Santa Fe, one of the leading arts communities in the country,” Kret added.

ABOUT THE GEORGIA O’KEEFFE MUSEUM

The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum is dedicated to perpetuating the artistic legacy of Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) and to the study and interpretation of American modernism. Located in Santa Fe, N.M., the museum’s collections, exhibits, research center, publications and education programs contribute to scholarly discourse and serve diverse audiences. The largest single repository of the artist’s work in the world, our collection includes nearly 1,200 O’Keeffe paintings, drawings and sculptures. It is the only museum in the world dedicated to an internationally known woman artist, and is the most visited art museum in New Mexico. For more information, visit www.okeeffemuseum.org.

# # #

SANTA FE, N.M – The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum is proud to announce that Carolyn Kastner has been appointed Associate Curator.

Kastner comes to the museum from the College of Santa Fe, where she was professor of art history and taught and lectured on Native American art and contemporary art, among other subjects. She holds a doctorate in American art history from Stanford University and was a Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Research Center Scholar in 2008.

She has also served as a professor and lecturer at the California College of the Arts, curator at San Francisco’s Museum of Craft and Folk Art, and as an independent curatorial consultant. Other postings include the Stanford University Museum of Art and the Anderson Collection, a private collection in Menlo Park, Calif.

“As a curator, I am thrilled by the opportunity to join the talented staff at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum,” Kastner said. “As an art historian, I am grateful to its founders and donors for their grand vision of perpetuating O’Keeffe’s artistic legacy within the context of American modernism. It is an extraordinary privilege to work in such a rich cultural and intellectual environment.”

ABOUT THE GEORGIA O’KEEFFE MUSEUM

The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum is dedicated to perpetuating the artistic legacy of Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) and to the study and interpretation of American modernism (1890s – present). Located in Santa Fe, N.M., the museum’s collections, exhibits, research center, publications and education programs contribute to scholarly discourse and serve diverse audiences. The largest single repository of the artist’s work in the world, our collection includes nearly 1,200 O’Keeffe paintings, drawings and sculptures. It is the only museum in the world dedicated to an internationally known woman artist, and is the most visited art museum in New Mexico. For more information, visit www.okeeffemuseum.org.

# # #