‘Artful Living: Georgia O’Keeffe and Modern Design’ Now Open at Welcome Center in Abiquiú
Exhibition puts focus on O’Keeffe’s furnishings, textiles, and relationships with mid-century–modern designers
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE–April 25, 2024–(Abiquiú, NM)–The 1950s come alive at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Welcome Center’s newest exhibition Artful Living: Georgia O’Keeffe and Modern Design. The exhibition allows visitors to learn about the mid-century–modern design movement in America and how O’Keeffe embraced the style, incorporating it in her home well into the 1980s.
Featuring items from O’Keeffe’s personal furniture collection, the exhibition explores how the artist transformed her traditional adobe home into a mid-century–modern masterpiece. Chairs, recliners, light fixtures, textiles, and other homewares made the 5,000-square-foot compound in Abiquiú an abode that reflected O’Keeffe’s personal style and provided the environment that cultivated her creative endeavors.
“I always say that the Home & Studio is O’Keeffe’s largest work of art,” said Giustina Renzoni, the Museum’s Curator of Historic Properties. “She spent decades curating a style and furniture collection that matched her aesthetic at the time. She was as thoughtful and intentional with her home as she was with the artwork she was creating.”
The exhibition also brings forth the O’Keeffe’s relationships with mid-century designers—Alexander and Susan Girard, Ray and Charles Eames, Isamu Noguchi, and others—who helped her to combine her distinct taste with what was then a fashionable trend. She traveled internationally with the Girards and was given custom pieces by the Eameses.
“Even though she lived in Northern New Mexico, hundreds of miles from New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and other design hubs, O’Keeffe was able to stay connected to design trends through these relationships,” Renzoni said.
Photographs of the home also show the many iterations the home décor and furnishings have undergone during the four decades O’Keeffe lived there. While the Home & Studio is now famous for its neutral palette and simplistic styling, it has been colorful at times, with vibrant rugs, paintings, cushion covers, and items collected from the artist’s worldwide travels, some of which are on display.
Artful Living: Georgia O’Keeffe and Modern Design is open now through March 2025, during regular Welcome Center hours (Tuesday–Saturday, 8 AM–4 PM). The Welcome Center is located at 21120 US-84, Abiquiú, NM 87510.
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For media inquiries, contact:
Renee Lucero
Public Relations Manager, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum
505-946-1063
[email protected]
Image credit: Artful Living: O’Keeffe and Modern Design Exhibition Opening at the Welcome Center. 2024. © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum.
ABOUT THE GEORGIA O’KEEFFE MUSEUM: Since 1997, the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum celebrates the art, life, and independent spirit of Georgia O’Keeffe. Located in Santa Fe, 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 gokm.org
