Access O’Keeffe Project Documentation

Overview

Access O’Keeffe provides access to all known artworks by Georgia O’Keeffe along with art, archive, and historic home collections from the O’Keeffe Museum. Records of O’Keeffe’s work are based on Georgia O’Keeffe: Catalogue Raisonné by Barbara Buhler Lynes with updates from public institutions and from exhibitions checklists.

A catalogue raisonné lists all the known works of an artist and is a critical tool for researching and understanding the full body of work of an artist. However, because information surrounding an artist and their work evolves over time, printed catalogues raisonné inevitably become outdated. The 1999 Georgia O’Keeffe: Catalogue Raisonné is a tremendous source of information, but as with any catalogue in print, the text does not reflect the past twenty years of active research, exhibitions, and changes in artwork ownership.

Substantially funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), Access O’Keeffe addresses the shortcomings of a printed catalogue raisonné, and aims to create a new model for what is possible through a digital platform.

Access O’Keeffe explores new ways to engage the public in learning about the art and life of Georgia O’Keeffe, one of the most important artists of the 20th century. Working with contributors around the world, the O’Keeffe Museum will provide free access to all known artworks by Georgia O’Keeffe as a user-friendly searchable browser with related images, exhibition histories, archival materials, and other data associated with the artist’s catalogue raisonné. Visual descriptions will be written for all artworks to increase accessibility. The resulting product based on a Linked Art linked open data platform will offer new ways to explore an artist’s full body of work through data visualization and other research tools.

In addition to the Museum’s own collection, the O’Keeffe Museum seeks contributions from approximately 133 contributing organizations to share up-to-date information for O’Keeffe art held in public collections. Access O’Keeffe will drive traffic to these institutions by linking to records in contributor’s online collections, creating a rich online learning and exploration process. For this initial phase, information regarding O’Keeffe art in private collections will be sourced from the 1999 print edition of the Georgia O’Keeffe: Catalogue Raisonné as well as through existing relationships with private collectors.

Key Features

Georgia O’Keeffe Artwork Detail Page

The artwork detail page aims to first showcase an at-a-glance summary of information that clearly states its current collection with links to more information about that organization. To protect the privacy of independent collectors, works in private collections are marked as such without providing additional personal information.

Following the summary information is a Catalogue Raisonné area providing more detailed artwork information. This area provides a carousel of images to allow an individual to explore works surrounding the artwork in the Catalogue Raisonné, allowing one to ‘page through’ in the digital format.

Supporting User Workflows

Access O’Keeffe focuses on supporting user workflows such as providing templates for various types of output: pdf (print), excel, or comma separated data; and offering tools to make personalized lists.

Information Updates

Each artwork page will indicate the last date updated.

Project Timeline

This project is now live at http://access-ok.gokm.org!

Contact us using the Access O’Keeffe Feedback form.