Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)

Blue Sand

Details
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)
Blue Sand
oil on canvas
30 x 40in. (76.2 x 101.6cm.)
Provenance
Estate of the artist
Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Acquired by the present owner from the above in 1983
Exhibited
Jacksonville, Florida, The Cummer Gallery of Art, American Masterpieces of The Warner Collection, September-November 1984
Amarillo, Texas, Amarillo Art Center, Georgia O'Keeffe and Her Contemporaries, September-December 1985, no. 21, illus.
Birmingham, Alabama, The Birmingham Museum of Art, American Masterpieces from The Warner Collection, January-March 1987
Santa Fe, New Mexico, Gerald Peters Gallery, Georgia O'Keeffe: Selected Paintings, no. 35, illus. (This exhibition traveled to Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix Art Museum, April 15-June 15, 1988; Tokyo, Japan, Seibu Museum, August 1988; Osaka, Japan, Seibu Museum, September-October 1988; Aspen, Colorado, Aspen Art Museum, December 1988-January 1989)
South Bend, Indiana, The South Bend Art Center, Impressions of America from The Warner Collection, December 1989-February 1990
Montgomery, Alabama, Montgomery Museum of Art, Impressions of America from the Warner Collection, June-July 1991
Memphis, Tennessee, The Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Impressions of America from The Warner Collection, November 1992-January 1993
Richmond, Virginia, The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, American Dreams: Paintings and Decorative Arts from The Warner Collection, September 1997-January 1998

Lot Essay

Georgia O'Keeffe painted Blue Sand circa 1959 while she was living in New Mexico. "In the 1950s and 1960s O'Keeffe's sources would become her immediate world of the Abiquiu, New Mexico patio door, the Ghost Ranch post ends, the courtyard flagstones, and her airplane flight above the clouds. The artist was responding to the generation of post-World War II artists as they, too, expanded their works to an environmental proportion" ( Jack Cowart and Juan Hamilton, Georgia O'Keeffe Art and Letters, 1987, pg. 5).

Blue Sand is the result of O'Keeffe's own vision of the landscape she encountered while walking throughout her surroundings in New Mexico. Her favorite themes were often simple forms that were elementary and timeless. These forms connote a mystical and spiritual meaning that is the essence of her works. The shades of blue and white sweep across the canvas like a sand storm in the desert. These colors actually form meaning. O'Keeffe states: "The meaning of a word--to me--is not as exact as the meaning of a color. Color and shapes make a more definite statement than words. I write this because such odd things have been done about me with words. I have often been told what to paint. I am often amazed at the spoken and written word telling me what I have painted. I make this effort because no one else can know how my paintings happen" (A Studio Book, The Viking Press Georgia O'Keeffe, 1974, pg.1). The splendor of Blue Sand is its abstract quality that reveals O'Keeffe's freedom to explore the beauty of color, shape and form found in the desert landscape.

This painting will be considered for inclusion in the forthcoming catalogue raisonn of the artist's work, a joint project of the National Gallery of Art and Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation, with the assistance of the Burnett Foundation and the Henry Luce Foundation. Author: Barbara Buhler Lynes.