"The Black Place" was the name O'Keeffe gave to one of her favorite painting sites in New Mexico. It was a stretch of desolate hills that she said looked, from a distance, like "a mile of elephants." Over a period of fourteen years (1936–49), this place inspired a torrent of work in paint, pastel, and pencil. Most often, she featured the jagged juncture of two hills, as in this fairly abstract interpretation of the scene.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Black Place II
Artist:Georgia O'Keeffe (American, Sun Prairie, Wisconsin 1887–1986 Santa Fe, New Mexico)
Date:1944
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:23 7/8 × 30 in. (60.6 × 76.2 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1959
Object Number:59.204.1
the artist (1944–59; on extended loan to MMA, 1949–59; her gift as part of the Alfred Stieglitz Collection to MMA)
New York. An American Place. "Georgia O'Keeffe: Paintings—1944," January 22–March 22, 1945, no catalogue (checklist no. 8).
New York. Whitney Museum of American Art. "1948 Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting," November 13, 1948–January 2, 1949, no. 105.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "20th Century Painters: A Special Exhibition of Oils, Water Colors and Drawings Selected from the Collections of American Art in the Metropolitan Museum," June 16–October 29, 1950, unnum. brochure (p. 9; permanent loan from the artist).
Dallas Museum of Fine Arts. "An Exhibition of Paintings by Georgia O'Keeffe," February 1–22, 1953, brochure no. 22.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Fourteen American Masters: Paintings from Colonial Times to Today," October 16, 1958–January 4, 1959, no catalogue.
Galerie des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux. "Profil du Metropolitan Museum of Art de New York: de Ramsès à Picasso," May 15–September 1, 1981, no. 225.
Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art. "Landscape Painting in the East and West," April 19–June 1, 1986, no. 39.
Kobe City Museum. "Landscape Painting in the East and West," June 7–July 13, 1986, no. 39.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Georgia O'Keeffe: 1887–1986," November 19, 1988–February 5, 1989, not in catalogue (unnumbered checklist addenda).
Los Angeles County Museum of Art. "Georgia O'Keeffe: 1887–1986," March 30–June 18, 1989, not in catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "American Landscape Painting," April 4–August 13, 1989, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "14 Americans," July 16, 1990–January 2, 1991, no catalogue.
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. "Modern Art and America: Alfred Stieglitz and His New York Galleries," January 28–April 22, 2001, unnumbered cat. (pl. 179).
New York. Whitney Museum of American Art. "Georgia O'Keeffe: Abstraction," September 17, 2009–January 17, 2010, unnumbered cat. (pl. 134).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Stieglitz and His Artists: Matisse to O'Keeffe," October 13, 2011–January 2, 2012, no. 193.
Brooklyn Museum. "Georgia O'Keeffe: Living Modern," March 3–July 23, 2017, unnumbered cat. (fig. 173).
Bentonville, Ark. Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. "The Beyond: Georgia O'Keeffe and Contemporary Art," May 26–September 3, 2018, unnumbered cat. (p. 123).
William S. Lieberman inProfil du Metropolitan Museum of Art de New York: de Ramsès à Picasso. Exh. cat., Galerie des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux. Bordeaux, 1981, p. 174, no. 225, ill.
Lowery S. Sims inProfil du Metropolitan Museum of Art de New York: de Ramsès à Picasso. Exh. cat., Galerie des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux. Bordeaux, 1981, pp. 166–67.
Lisa Mintz Messinger. "Georgia O'Keeffe." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 42 (Fall 1984), pp. 54, 56–67, 61, ill.
Vera Graaf. "Georgia O'Keefes Leben." Du no. 5 (May 1987), pp. 28–29, ill.
Lisa Mintz Messinger. Georgia O'Keeffe. New York, 1988, pp. 85–87, ill.
Michael Berry. Georgia O'Keeffe. New York, 1988, pp. 90–91, ill.
Roxana Robinson. Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life. New York, 1989, pp. 477–78.
Doris Bry inGeorgia O'Keeffe, in the West. Ed. Doris Bry and Nicholas Callaway. New York, 1989, pl. 60.
Elizabeth Montgomery. Georgia O'Keeffe. New York, 1993, p. 71, ill.
Lisa Mintz Messinger inThe Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. Ed. Peter H. Hassrick. New York, 1997, p. 41, ill.
Barbara Buhler Lynes. Georgia O'Keeffe: Catalogue Raisonné. New Haven, Conn., 1999, vol. 1, p. 683, no. 1081, ill.
Barbara Buhler Lynes with Russell Bowman. O'Keeffe's O'Keeffes: The Artist's Collection. Exh. cat., Milwaukee Art Museum. New York, 2001, p. 169 (app. 2: "Works Given to Institutions during the Artist's Lifetime").
Hunter Drohojowska-Philp. Full Bloom: The Art and Life of Georgia O'Keeffe. New York, 2004, ill. between pp. 376–77.
Lisa Mintz Messinger inStieglitz and His Artists: Matisse to O'Keeffe. The Alfred Stieglitz Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ed. Lisa Mintz Messinger. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2011, pp. 14, 205, 282, no. 193, ill. (color).
Isabelle Duvernois inStieglitz and His Artists: Matisse to O'Keeffe. The Alfred Stieglitz Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ed. Lisa Mintz Messinger. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2011, p. 193.
Georgia O'Keeffe (American, Sun Prairie, Wisconsin 1887–1986 Santa Fe, New Mexico)
1937
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