O’Keeffe Receives Prestigious $187,000 Grant
The Museum is one of this year’s recipients for the Institute of Museum and Library Services “Museums for America” grant
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE—September 24, 2019 (Santa Fe, NM)— The Georgia O’Keeffe
Museum is honored to be named as a recipient of the prestigious Museums for America grant
provided by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), for a total award of over $187,000. The grant will help the Museum increase public access to its collections by making available high-quality images of its fine art and holdings related to the American artist Georgia O’Keeffe.
“All of us at the O’Keeffe are jumping with happiness about the IMLS award,” says Liz Neely, Curator of Digital Experiences. “At first, the project might just seem like a big photo shoot, but it is more than that. Our collection is vast, and we will develop innovative tech strategies to make the scope of these materials available online for anyone to zoom in and explore the details. The images will be gorgeous.”
In recent years, the Museum has enhanced its digital tools through a Linked Open Database, which maps the relationships between different O’Keeffe objects. Now, the Museum requires high-quality images to put these developments to best use. The majority of its current digital images are scans of film photographs from over 25 years ago, many of which show scratches and dust. With the IMLS grant, the O’Keeffe will develop quality imaging to meet the highest archival standards, and will then share these images publicly through an online portal. The scope of the project will cover 141 oil paintings; 1,156 fine art photographs, 204 works on paper, and dozens of objects from Georgia O’Keeffe’s personal property. At the conclusion, the
new images will be publicly accessible through the gokm.org website, and available for free
search and discovery. The project is expected to take three years to complete.
“We are so grateful to the IMLS for this opportunity. It is a lot of work, but we’re ready for it,”
says Neely. “This will help us fulfill our mission to advance Georgia O’Keeffe’s artistic legacy–and to be able to do it beyond gallery walls.”
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ABOUT THE GEORGIA O’KEEFFE MUSEUM: Since 1997, the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum has
shared the art, life, and story of Georgia O’Keeffe with visitors from around the world. Located in
New Mexico, where Georgia O’Keeffe lived the final decades of her life, the O’Keeffe has sites
and experiences in two historic destinations, Santa Fe and Abiquiú. For more information, please visit okeeffemuseum.org
