Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986)

1. 1887, Nov. 15

   Born near Sun Prairie, Wis., to Irish Catholic farmer Francis O’Keeffe and Dutch-Hungarian Episcopalian Ida Totto O’Keeffe. Given the middle name Totto in honor of her Hungarian maternal grandfather.

   

2. 1887-1902

   Raised on the family dairy and livestock farm and educated at a one-room rural school until age thirteen, then at Sacred Heart Academy and Madison High School in Madison, Wis. Her maternal aunts Alletta (Ollie) and Lenore (Lola) Totto were role models as independent women, and quilting was early evidence of rural women’s involvement in abstract design and use of color.

3. 1898-1901

   Began drawing lessons from the Prang Educational Company of Boston drawing books, taught by a family boarder, then watercolor study with local amateur artist Sarah Mann, and art class with Sister Angelique at her convent school.

4. 1902

   When family moved to Williamsburg, Va., remained in Wisconsin, living with her aunt Lola in Madison. When her high school art teacher showed the class a purplish Jack-in-the-Pulpit as subject matter, the lesson in abstracting color and line from a flower or natural object made a formative impression.

5. 1903-1905

   Followed family in their prior move to Williamsburg, Va. Attended Chatham Episcopal Institute, a girls’ boarding school in Chatham, Va. Studied with Elizabeth May Willis, who trained at the Art Students League in New York. Served as art editor of the school yearbook, contributing caricatures in pen.

6. 1905-1906

   As encouraged by Willis, enrolled in the Art Institute of Chicago School. Mentored there in life drawing by John Vanderpoel. Observed the Art Nouveau design trends of the city.

7. 1906, Summer-Fall

   Became ill with typhoid fever. Returned to Williamsburg to convalesce.

8. 1907, Fall

   Enrolled at Art Students League of New York. Studied with William Merritt Chase, Kenyon Cox, and F. Luis Mora. Roomed with Florence Cooney. Awarded a prize by Chase for her still life study, Dead Rabbit with Copper Pot.

9. 1907-1908

   Posed as a model for fellow art student Eugene Speicher and created a portrait of Speicher.

10. 1908, Jan. 2

    Class visited Alfred Stieglitz’s “291” Photo-Secession galleries at 291 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan to view the Auguste Rodin exhibition. Saw photographer and art promoter Alfred Stieglitz in person for the first time. Returned to 291 in April to study works of Henri Matisse.

11. 1908, Summer

    Obtained scholarship to study still life at Amitola, the Art Students League Outdoor School, Lake George, N.Y. Marked the first experience of painting outdoors and what would be an important personal connection to Lake George and to its environment as subject matter for her art.

12. 1908-1910

    In the fall 1908, began work as a freelance commercial artist in Chicago. Created illustrations for advertisements. Fell ill with measles, which harmed her eyesight. Went to her mother’s home in Charlottesville, Va., to convalesce.

13. 1911

    Substitute taught for Willis at the Chatham Episcopal Institute, Chatham, Va. Marked the beginning of her employment as an art teacher.

14. 1912

    Studied drawing in summer school at the University of Virginia, in an influential class taught by Arthur Wesley Dow’s student and Columbia University fine arts instructor Alon Bement.

15. 1912-1914

    Art teacher and supervisor in Amarillo, Tex., public schools. Taught summer school drawing classes as Bement’s teaching assistant at the University of Virginia.

16. 1914-1915

    In fall 1914, with financial help from her aunt Ollie, enrolled at Columbia University Teachers College in Manhattan. Studied with Arthur Wesley Dow, who taught aesthetic theories of Ernest Fenollosa, emphasizing Chinese and Japanese design and the idea of Zen in the creation of art. Became friends with feminist Anita Pollitzer, a fellow student in a class on Modernist painting taught by Charles J. Martin. With Pollitzer, visited Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso exhibition at 291. Later returned to view exhibits featuring Marion Beckett, Katherine Rhoades, and John Marin.

17. 1915

    Began correspondence with Pollitzer as a confidante. Expressed the connection she felt between art and music. Wrote to Alfred Stieglitz and subscribed to Stieglitz’s magazine. Also subscribed to The Masses. Read the English edition of Wallis Kandinsky’s Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1911, trans. 1914).

18. 1915-1916

    Beginning in fall 1915 and continuing until the following March, worked for an academic year as an art teacher at Columbia College in College Place, S.C., a Methodist music school for women. Used a room as an art studio to pursue her drawing.

19. 1916-1917

    Joined the National Woman’s Party (NWP). Supported women’s right to vote and equity in professional careers. Friend Pollitzer became a dedicated activist with the NWP, traveling on speaking tours, and in 1917 was among those arrested while picketing the White House in demand for a Constitutional amendment for women’s suffrage. In 1945 Pollitzer headed the party in its advocacy for an Equal Rights Amendment.

20. 1916, Jan.

    Pollitzer showed a sampling of O’Keeffe’s abstract drawings made in South Carolina to an impressed Alfred Stieglitz at the 291 gallery in New York. Stieglitz wrote to O’Keeffe and said it was impossible to put into words what he felt when looking at her work. The two began a regular correspondence.

21. 1916, Mar.-June

    Returned to New York for further training in methods of teaching art with Arthur Wesley Dow at Teachers College. Viewed Marsden Hartley exhibition at 291. Lived with relatives of Pollitzer in Manhattan.

22. 1916, May 23-July 5

    Without securing O’Keeffe’s permission, Stieglitz mounted ten O’Keeffe charcoal drawings in display at 291, misnaming her in the labels as “Virginia” rather than Georgia. Part of a three-person exhibition along with works by Charles Duncan and Rene Lafferty. Marked first exhibited works at a Stieglitz gallery, a phenomenon which would span more than thirty years.

23. 1916, May-Aug.

    Mother Ida Totto O’Keeffe died of tuberculosis in an impoverished condition in Charlottesville. Left New York for Charlottesville and corresponded with Pollitzer and Stieglitz. Taught drawing at the University of Virginia. Mailed work to Pollitzer and Stieglitz before leaving for Texas.

24. 1916, Sept.-1918 Feb.

    Employed as head of the art department at West Texas State Normal College in Canyon, Tex., near Amarillo. Used techniques taught by Dow and Fenollosa. Taught drawing and costume, interior, and general design. Distressed at the lack of available books for students, developed the holdings of the school library with Pollitzer’s mail-order help. Visited nearby canyonlands for artistic inspiration.

25. 1916, Fall

    Early in her time in Canyon, Stieglitz sent her a copy of Faust, saying he had discovered it as a boy, and it helped him in despairing moments. She saw a production of Israel Zangwill’s play The Melting Pot in Amarillo with fellow faculty. Stieglitz reported that he sat next to Emma Goldman at a production by the Provincetown Players on MacDougal Street and attended Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde at the Metropolitan Opera. Woodrow Wilson elected president of the United States in a close race with Charles Evans Hughes.

26. 1916, Nov.-Dec.

    Stieglitz exhibited her work in a group show at 291 with Marsden Hartley and John Marin. Studied Marin and Picasso from issues of Camera Work.

27. 1917, Apr 3.-May

    First solo show at 291, Exhibition of Recent Work by Georgia O’Keeffe of Canyon, Texas, featuring charcoal drawings, oils, and watercolors, organized by Stieglitz as the last show for the gallery before it closed for financial reasons in July. Her charcoal drawing, Train at Night in the Desert (1916) sold to a private collector, her first sale as a professional artist. During the show, the United States declared war on Germany, April 6. Many of the young men O’Keeffe knew in Texas enlisted.

28. 1917, May 24-June 1

    Her academic year completed, and having heard from Stieglitz that he intended to close 291, she took unannounced trip from Texas to New York, surprising Stieglitz at the gallery. Stieglitz had deinstalled her exhibit but returned it to the walls for her to see. He made four portraits of O’Keeffe, two of her hands, and two of her with her watercolor Blue I, the first of many images he made of her as subject matter for his photography. Was attracted to Paul Strand when introduced by Stieglitz at the gallery and admired samples of his photography. Strand, a fellow Stieglitz protégé, became her close friend and colleague even while her relationship with Stieglitz intensified. O’Keeffe, Stieglitz, and Strand visited Coney Island with inventor Henry J. Gaisman.

29. 1917, Summer

    291 closed. Stieglitz summered with family at Lake George. O’Keeffe taught summer school in Canyon.

30. 1917, Aug.

    Vacationed with her youngest sister Claudia in the western landscape. They toured the Colorado Rockies, visited Denver and Santa Fe, and took a train ride through New Mexico, where O’Keeffe viewed the high mesa landscape for the first time. Began new series of landscape watercolors and continued correspondence with Stieglitz and Strand.

31. 1917, Sept.

    Resumed teaching in Canyon. Anti-German sentiment intensified on the home front with greater American support for the war. Stieglitz brought his daughter, Kitty, to start school at Smith College, returned to Manhattan without a gallery to run or a magazine to publish, and separated from his wife Emmy. He moved to the East 59th Street studio of his niece, Elizabeth Stieglitz, who became a friend, correspondent, and confidante of O’Keefe’s.

32. 1918, Feb.-April

    Fell ill and took leave of absence from teaching. Convalesced in Waring and San Antonio, Tex. Elizabeth Stieglitz sent telegram urging her to come to New York.

33. 1918, May

    Paul Strand encouraged by Stieglitz to go to Texas to check on the ill O’Keeffe’s well-being and urge her to return to New York. Strand harbored his own romantic attraction to O’Keeffe as well as a concerned friendship and loyalty as an emissary for their mutual mentor, Stieglitz.

34. 1918, June 3-9

    With Strand’s assistance, traveled from San Antonio to New York, still weakened from influenza. Upon arrival in Manhattan June 9, moved into Elizabeth Stieglitz’s studio apartment on East 59th Street and was attended for her cough by Stieglitz’s physician brother, Lee.

35. 1918, July-Aug.

    Officially resigned from her teaching job in August. Stieglitz and O’Keeffe began a passionate love affair and he made intimate artistic photographs of her that were later exhibited. He removed his belongings from the home he had shared with wife Emmeline (Emmy). He and O’Keeffe begin a long-standing pattern of summers at Lake George, N.Y., at the Stieglitz family vacation home, and winters in New York City.

36. 1918, Nov.

    Father Francis O’Keeffe died suddenly in an accidental fall in Virginia.

37. 1918-1919

    Both O’Keeffe and Stieglitz flourished as artists. She began working more regularly in oils, in addition to watercolors and pastels, and employed techniques of photography in cropping close-up views of flowers. At Lake George, does more representational art, but also abstract paintings inspired by music.

38. 1919, Mar.

    Stieglitz arranged for O’Keeffe works to be included in an exhibition of modern art at the Young Women’s Hebrew Association.

39. 1920

    Began what would become repeated personal vacations to York Beach, Maine. Painted autumn images at Lake George.

40. 1920-1924

    Lived with Stieglitz in his brother Lee’s home on East 65th Street in Manhattan.

41. 1921

    Stieglitz exhibited intimate photographic portraits of O’Keeffe and studies of her nude body in an exhibition of his work at the Anderson Galleries, New York, creating a sensation. O’Keeffe’s work included in a modern art exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia. Continued to paint at Lake George.

42. 1922

    Exhibited in modern art exhibition at the Municipal Building in Freehold, N.J., organized by Stieglitz. Designed the logo for the Stieglitz circle periodical, Manuscripts. Painted landscapes at Lake George and used a renovated shed she referred to as The Shanty as an art studio at The Hill, the Stieglitz property.

43. 1923

    Stieglitz organized a second major solo exhibition of O’Keeffe drawings and paintings at the Anderson Galleries in New York. It featured one hundred works in a variety of mediums. Frustrated by the Freudian bent of critical response and the gendered readings of her abstracted renditions of natural forms. Paul Strand noted the connections of her work with that of Henri Rousseau. Began painting on larger-scale canvases.

44. 1924

    Joint show of Stieglitz and O’Keeffe work at the Anderson Galleries.

45. 1924, Sept.-Nov.

    Stieglitz’s divorce finalized and O’Keeffe and Stieglitz moved together to an apartment at 35 East 58th Street in New York.

46. 1924, Dec. 11

    Married Alfred Stieglitz in a small private ceremony in New Jersey.

47. 1925, Mar.

    Showed in Seven Americans exhibition at the Anderson Galleries curated by Stieglitz, with Charles Demuth, Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, John Marin, Alfred Stieglitz, and Paul Strand. Marked the debut of her flower paintings displayed in context of the Stieglitz Circle.

48. 1925

    Indicated to Paul Strand that she began to feel artistically stifled at Lake George and longed for more wide-open spaces.

49. 1925, Nov.-Dec.

    Moved with Stieglitz to a suite in the newly constructed Shelton Hotel on Lexington Avenue between 48th and 49th streets and lived there for over a decade. Began painting New York skyscrapers and views from the Shelton.

50. 1925, Dec.

    Stieglitz opened The Intimate Gallery at 489 Park Avenue, and it became a venue for display of her work through 1929. Oversaw installations of most of the exhibits at the gallery, including her own annual displays.

51. 1926, Jan.-Feb.

    Duncan and Marjorie Phillips viewed her work at The Intimate Gallery and made their first purchase of an O’Keeffe painting, My Shanty, Lake George, an oil of her Lake George art studio painted in 1922. Marked the first purchase of an O’Keeffe work for a museum collection.

52. 1926, Feb.-Apr.

    Exhibition of fifty paintings at The Intimate Gallery, including her new urban landscapes.

53. 1926, Summer

    Began clamshell series in oil and pastel at York Beach, Maine.

54. 1926

    Spoke on the principles of gender equality at a National Woman’s Party gathering in Washington, D.C., addressing 490 fellow members of the feminist organization.

55. 1926-1927

    Stieglitz suffered from recurring kidney stones and O’Keeffe from sleeplessness, weight loss, and depression.

56. 1927

    Henwar Rodakiewicz married Marie Tudor Garland. Born in Austria in 1902, Rodakiewicz was a budding photographer, screenwriter, cameraman and director who made his living through most of his life as a commercial documentary filmmaker. He became in the 1930s and 1940s a close confidante of both O’Keeffe and Stieglitz, and a professional associate of Paul Strand.

57. 1927, Jan.

    Georgia O’Keeffe, Paintings, 1927 at The Intimate Gallery includes cityscapes and studies of the Shelton Hotel or perspectives of urban landscape from the hotel window.

58. 1927, June-Sept.

    Fifteen-painting retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum of Art.

59. 1927, July-Dec.

    Hospitalized for benign breast-cyst operation in July. Unable to paint during recovery. Recuperated at Lake George and returned to Manhattan in early November. Returned to Mount Sinai hospital for another surgery in December.

60. 1927, Dec.

    Arranged exhibition with other artists at the newly opened Opportunity Gallery on East 56th Street, run by her former teaching mentor Alon Bement.

61. 1928, Jan.-Mar.

    Her new show at The Intimate Gallery featuring calla lily paintings opened without her, as she was still convalescing. Stieglitz admirer Dorothy Norman, who had recently given birth to a daughter, re-appeared radiantly at the gallery to see Stieglitz and he soon took her on as a gallery assistant. At first meeting O’Keeffe and Norman debate best paths to social justice, O’Keeffe championing the Equal Rights Amendment and the National Woman’s Party, and Norman the American Civil Liberties Union and issues of racial equality, reproductive rights, and the poor. Visited Bermuda for further rest.

62. 1928, Spring-Fall

    Traveled on her own for a vacation to Maine. Upon return it was painfully evident that her husband and Norman had entered a state of mutual obsession. In a return to her roots, visited her maternal aunts in Wisconsin, and painted Wisconsin Barn, using an automobile as her studio. Explained that to her, the image represented a healthy part of herself associated with her early childhood. In September at Woods Hole, Mass., Stieglitz had a severe heart incident that left him bedridden. As they did in other instances, O’Keeffe and her sister Ida cared for him in his convalescence. O’Keeffe and Stieglitz returned to Manhattan in November.

63. 1929

    Prepared exhibit of Marsden Hartley in New York with Rebecca “Beck” Salsbury Strand. O’Keeffe’s last show at The Intimate Gallery opened in February and was uninspired. It was followed with a display of the photographs of Paul Strand, including his organic images from Maine and prints from his 1926 trip to Taos. Urged husband Alfred Stieglitz to travel with her to the Southwest, which he had been encouraged to do many times by Mabel Dodge Luhan, along with other members of the Stieglitz Circle. He declined, in large part due to his doctor’s warning of the health risks of high altitude due to his heart condition, and an alternate travel companion was found in Paul Strand’s wife, Rebecca.

64. 1929, Apr. 28

    Departed New York by the Twentieth Century Limited for Chicago, with Rebecca Strand. They stopped in Chicago to visit O’Keeffe’s brother Alexis, his wife, and baby, and the Art Institute of Chicago before resuming their train travel on the Santa Fe Limited heading west. Alexis, who had been gassed in World War I, died suddenly early in the next year, when a second child was on the way.

65. 1929, May

    Soon after arrival, Strand and O’Keeffe attended the annual corn dance ceremonies at San Felipe Pueblo, where they encountered Mabel Dodge Luhan and Dorothy Brett. O’Keeffe and Strand took up residence as guests at the Luhan compound in Taos. Tony Luhan (Antonio Lujan) guided them on trips by automobile and horseback to nearby sites of scenic beauty and offered entre to his Taos Pueblo Indian community.

66. 1929, May-June

    Borrowing a Luhan vehicle, Strand taught O’Keeffe to drive. The new skill was liberating for O’Keeffe, who used automobiles to travel to locations to paint outdoors. The two ordered their own Ford, a purchase that was as symbolic of womanly independence as it was practical. In addition to Tony Luhan, O’Keeffe befriended Luhan secretary and Laughing Horse literary editor Walter Willard “Spud” Johnson, his lover the poet Witter Bynner, the artist Cady Wells, and Garland and Rodakiewicz, as well as other members of the Luhan circle. John Marin was also a Luhan guest that summer in Taos.

67. 1929, June

    The Intimate Gallery closed in New York.

68. 1929, July-Aug.

    Rode horseback and painted at the D. H. Lawrence Kiowa ranch on Mount Lobo with Dorothy Brett. Paintings included The Lawrence Tree painted outside the Lawrence house at the ranch. Was profiled in The New Yorker.

69. 1929, Aug. 4

    Attended the Annual Feast Day and Corn Dance at Santa Domingo Pueblo.

70. 1929, Aug. 10-18

    Toured Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah, including time at Bryce Canyon and the Grand Canyon, by automobile with Rodakiewicz, Garland, Johnson, and Charles Collier.

71. 1929, Aug. 25

    Returned to Lake George, New York, via Albany.

72. 1929, Nov.

    Five O’Keeffe paintings shown in exhibition with other artists at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

73. 1929, Dec.

    Stieglitz opened An American Place gallery in Manhattan, which he directed with the aid of Norman until his death. O’Keeffe included in Paintings by Nineteen Living Artists, her second group show at the Museum of Modern Art. Began corresponding with Rodakiewicz, reporting that it felt good to get back to Stieglitz and be at Lake George, and that she was eager to see how her work created in New Mexico would be received in Manhattan.

74. 1930-1938

    O’Keeffe featured in a series of exhibitions annually at An American Place, and in subsequent years until the gallery closed.

75. 1930, Feb.-May

    First annual show at An American Place featured mostly paintings of New Mexico, including abstract cross imagery, still lifes, and a painting dedicated to her recently deceased brother Alexis. That spring in New York, debated Michael Gold, editor of the New Masses. Painted a jack-in-the-pulpit series.

76. 1930, June-Aug. 29

    Second sustained summertime trip to Taos, with time in spring and fall at Lake George, and the winter in Manhattan with Stieglitz. Paul and Rebecca Strand and Marin were also in Taos that summer. O’Keeffe made frequent visits to stay with Garland and Rodakiewicz at their H&M Ranch in Alcalde, where she met and became friends with Rodakiewicz’s mother, Erla, a former social worker born in Poland. Took summer evening automobile rides with Rodakiewicz and Spud Johnson, and automobile outings with Garland and Rodakiewicz to the Jemez Mountains. As usual during her summers apart from her husband, carried on regular correspondence with Stieglitz at Lake George.

77. 1930, June 28-July 3

    Took camping trip with Collier and others near Bear Lake, N.M.

78. 1931, Jan.-Feb.

    Exhibited paintings of the Southwest and New York at An American Place.

79. 1931, April-July

    Returned to New Mexico and lived and painted from a new studio cottage at H&M Ranch in Alcalde, the guest of Garland and Rodakiewicz. Made forays to Taos to visit the Luhans, Brett, Johnson, and Frieda Lawrence, including stays at Kiowa and the nearby Del Monte ranch owned by the Hawk family. Stieglitz summered in Manhattan, at Lake George, and Woods Hole, Mass., where Norman maintained a vacation home. The New York Stock Exchange and overall economy continued to waver. Upon return to Lake George and Manhattan, worked painting bones and skulls she had collected and shipped from New Mexico.

80. 1932, Jan.-Feb.

    Presented her bone and skull paintings at An American Place.

81. 1932, Apr.-May

    Over the objections of Stieglitz, accepted commercial commission to paint a mural for a powder room at Radio City Music Hall in New York. Exhibited in group show at the Museum of Modern Art.

82. 1932, May-Sept.

    Summered at Stieglitz family property at Lake George. Traveled to Montreal and the Gaspe Peninsula in Canada with Stieglitz’s niece Georgia Engelhardt. Garland maintained a house at Gaspe. Marked the first trip for O’Keeffe outside the United States.

83. 1932, Nov.-Dec.

    Radio City Music Hall project failed due to technical problems. Experienced depression and stopped painting for more than a year. Wrote in Christmas greeting to Rodakiewicz that she was “absurdly ill with a crazy heart,” had been in bed for a month, and was reading the Bible. Stieglitz teased her that “maybe the Bible is too exciting for you.”

84. 1933, Jan.-Mar.

    Georgia O’Keeffe: Paintings New & Some Old at An American Place, a retrospective of work from 1927 to 1932. Rodakiewicz, in Alvarado, Veracruz, Mexico, working on Redes with Paul Strand, received a six-month assignment to Brazil in association with brothers Andre and William La Varre’s Brazilian-Guiana expedition.

85. 1933, Feb.-Mar.

    Hospitalized in New York’s Doctors Hospital due to mental health.

86. 1933, Mar.-May

    Convalesced with friend the photographer Marjorie Content and Content’s daughter Sue at Garland’s home in Bermuda.

87. 1933, May-Dec.

    Lived at Lake George and began to draw again in October. Enjoyed the company of Jean Toomer while he was a guest at Lake George.

88. 1934

    Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired its first painting by O’Keeffe. Rodakiewicz and Garland divorced.

89. 1934, Jan.-Mar.

    Resumed painting. Exhibited with Marin at the Society of Arts and Crafts in Detroit, Mich. Annual show at An American Place. Georgia O’Keeffe: 44 Selected Paintings was a retrospective of work from 1915 to 1927. It included the clamshells and Jack-in-the-pulpit series and emphasized the early abstractions. Lewis Mumford emphasized the translation of feeling, the use of symbol, and the erotic nature of O’Keeffe’s art in his review for The New Yorker. Metropolitan Museum of Art purchased Black Hollyhock, Blue Larkspur, painted in New Mexico in 1929. Rodakiewicz sent her a small shell from Acapulco that she kept in her pocket as a talisman. Ned Scott replaced Rodakiewicz in camera work at the film shoot in Veracruz.

90. 1934, Mar.-May

    Overwhelmed by the frozen and snowy conditions at Lake George and the pressures of professional expectations, returned to the warm weather climes and detachment of Garland’s home in Bermuda. Other guests included Time-Life publications editor Noel Busch, Saturday Evening Post short story writer George Bradshaw, and novelist David Burnham.

91. 1934, June-Sept.

    Drove to New Mexico with Content and summered at H&M Ranch. Captivated by the varied landscapes on automobile journey with Collier to the Piedra Lumbre high desert plateau and Chama Canyon. The area had a long and rich Native American, Hispanic land grant, and paleontological history. Moved from Alcalde to a rented cottage at Carol Stanley’s Ghost Ranch resort and stayed until late September. Wrote Rodakiewicz that she began to feel better about her painting and more alive, and that it had been “very good for me to be rid of all old associations.” Content and Toomer married at the Luhan compound in Taos.

92. 1934, Oct.-Dec.

    Returned to Lake George, driving by automobile from Taos with Johnson. Rodakiewicz in Mexico reported the rounding off the work on Redes as a silent film, with problems for funding on sound.

93. 1935, Jan.

    Wrote to Rodakiewicz in Mexico, and told him that the recent Stieglitz show had been beautiful, but the thought of her own upcoming show gave her “no pleasure.” Also informed him she had crossed paths in Manhattan with his friend the filmmaker Floyd Crosby, who won the 1931 Academy Award for Best Cinematography for Tabu and would later be acclaimed for High Noon. Needing a mailing address for Rodakiewicz, said she would acquire one from his friend the photographer, writer, and filmmaker Gordon Buchanan Parks, and in another letter, that she had heard from theater and Art Deco designer Norman Bel Geddes.

94. 1935, Jan.-Feb.

    Georgia O’Keeffe: Exhibition of Paintings, 1919-1934 at An American Place.

95. 1935, Jan.-Mar.

    Rodakiewicz temporarily employed as assistant director in Hollywood for Paramount Pictures and received other offers for prospective work.

96. 1935, Feb.

    Photographed by Carl Van Vechten in New York.

97. 1935, Mar.

    Naturalist and Nature Magazine editor Arthur Newton Pack purchased the Ghost Ranch property from Stanley, who was in financial difficulty.

98. 1935, Apr.

    Underwent appendectomy.

99. 1935, April-June

    Recuperated from surgery at Lake George. Visited York Beach, Maine. Elizabeth Stieglitz’s husband Donald Douglas Davidson was a guest at Lake George. Rodakiewicz involved in the making of a Bing Crosby film in Hollywood.

100. 1935, July-Nov.

     Summered into the fall at Garland’s ranch at Alcalde and at the garden guest cottage at Ghost Ranch before returning to New York. Visited Canyon, Texas, in November, the first return since leaving her teaching post. Rodakiewicz, in Hollywood, worked on an original script storyline for a film set in Mexico that was ultimately not produced.

101. 1936, Jan.-Feb.

     An American Place show featured work inspired by New Mexico.

102. 1936, Spring

     Accepted commission for flower painting for the Elizabeth Arden salon in Manhattan. Wrote Rodakiewicz that “I got an order for a big flower painting for Elizabeth Arden---got it myself.”

103. 1936, June 11

     Pack’s earlier marriage having dissolved, he married Phoebe Finley, daughter of his close friend the nature photographer, conservationist, and filmmaker Bill Finley. Arthur and Phoebe Pack became the managers of Ghost Ranch and developed a regular seasonal clientele of vacationing returnees that included O’Keeffe.

104. 1936

     The film Redes/The Wave was released. Both Stieglitz and O’Keeffe read and praised the draft script for Rodakiewicz’s own film set in Mexico, which he had difficulty pitching in Hollywood. He meanwhile worked as a second-unit director for a Hollywood musical and corresponded regularly with both O’Keeffe and Stieglitz.

105. 1936, Aug.

     Rodakiewicz married Margaret “Peggy” Bok (later Margaret Kiskadden) and became stepfather to her children by her former marriage to publishing fortune heir and philanthropist Curtis Bok, whom she divorced in 1933. The family’s primary residence was in California. The children were Peggy’s daughter Wilomet (“Tissie”) and sons Benjamin and Derek Bok. Derek Bok (b. 1930) later became president of Harvard University, and in 1955 married Swedish sociologist Sissela Myrdal, daughter of Nobel laureates economist Gunnar Myrdal and diplomat Alva Myrdal.

106. 1936, June-Sept.

     Summered at Ghost Ranch. Used Pack’s newly available Rancho de los Burros home, three miles from ranch headquarters, as an art studio, and gradually took up residence there. Wrote to Rodakiewicz that she was “painting an old horse’s head that I picked out of some red earth.” Severe drought in the region in the 1930s caused mass deaths of many wild animals and livestock, whose bones lay bleaching in the desert sun. Hundreds of wild horses had been exterminated by federal sharpshooters the prior year.

107. 1936, Oct.

     Upon return to New York, moved with Stieglitz to penthouse apartment at 405 East 54th Street which provided greater studio space and light.

108. 1936, Oct.-Nov.

     Hanged Marin show at Museum of Modern Art with William Einstein, a distant relative of Stieglitz. Praised Marin as the “most important painter America has had” in a letter to Rodakiewicz, and observed that “Marin is a part of the big outdoors --- The French men are all indoors,” in reference to Picasso shows simultaneously up in New York. Also praised the talent of Ansel Adams. Sent Rodakiewicz a copy of the Marin catalogue.

109. 1936, Nov-Dec.

     Exhibited in group show with Demuth, Dove, Hartley, Marin, and Rebecca Strand at An American Place. The friendship of Paul and Rebecca Strand with Stieglitz became strained due to Stieglitz’s slighting of Beck’s skills as an artist and other factors.

110. 1937

     Rodakiewicz and Strand’s film Redes distributed in the United States as The Wave.

111. 1937, Jan.-Feb.

     Exhibited in Five Painters at the University of Minnesota gallery.

112. 1937, July-Aug.

     Returned to New Mexico and lived at the more remote Rancho de Los Burros house on Ghost Ranch property, while sharing group meals at headquarters with other resort guests. Visited for two weeks by the Rodakiewicz-Bok family and Gerald Heard, with day trips to Taos to see Aldous Huxley and other friends. Heard inspired her to paint a twisted cedar tree at Ghost Ranch.

113. 1937, Sept.-Dec.

     Traveled within New Mexico and to Arizona, Colorado, and Utah with Ansel Adams, art patron David McAlpin, Godfrey Rockefeller, and other friends, guided by Orville Cox. Photographed by Adams at the Grand Canyon, Canyon de Chelly, Ghost Ranch, and other Southwest locations. Stayed on at Ghost Ranch after the departure of other summer guests.

114. 1937, Oct.-Dec.

     Exhibited in large retrospective group show at An American Place, Beginnings & Landmarks—291—1905-1917.

115. 1938, May

     Awarded an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree by the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Va.

116. 1938, Aug.-Nov.

     Lived at Ghost Ranch and traveled to the Sierras and Yosemite National Park in California with Adams, McAlpin, and Godfrey and Helen Rockefeller. Tony and Mabel Dodge Luhan and Brett visited Ghost Ranch from Taos to see the Packs’ newborn son, Charlie. Rodakiewicz, in New York, worked with Ralph Steiner and American Documentary Films, stayed at the Shelton Hotel, and visited with Stieglitz.

117. 1939

     Rodakiewicz writer and producer for The City.

118. 1939, late Jan.

     Took train from New York and visited Peggy Bok Rodakiewicz and family at their home in Beverly Hills, California, before boarding ship to Hawai’i.

119. 1939, Feb. 8

     Arrived in Honolulu. Traveled and painted for nine weeks on Kauai, Maui, and Oahu, under commission with the Hawaiian (Dole) Pineapple Company’s advertising agency N. W. Ayer & Son. Wrote to Rodakiewicz about seeing the blue sea, the white sea foam, and the black lava beaches.

120. 1939, Apr.

     Painting Sunset, Long Island, selected to represent New York State in art exhibited at the New York World’s Fair. Rodakiewicz went to Washington, D.C., to hear Marian Anderson sing from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

121. 1939, Apr.-Oct.

     In New York, became ill and unable to paint.

122. 1939, Aug.-Sept.

     Lived at Lake George with Stieglitz.

123. 1940

     Rodakiewicz film on racial inequity in education in the South, One Tenth of Our Nation, released.

124. 1940, Feb.-Mar.

     Supplied an artist’s statement (“my painting is what I have to give back to the world”) for Georgia O’Keeffe: Exhibition of Oils and Pastels at An American Place. The works were painted in Hawai’i or “in New York from drawings or memories of things brought home” and included Sunset, Long Island. Went on trip to Nassau, Bahamas, in the British West Indies. Rodakiewicz, in New York and a regular visitor to An American Place, reported to her on Stieglitz’s wellbeing.

125. 1940, June-Dec.

     Lived at Ghost Ranch. Purchased the Rancho de los Burros house from Arthur Pack in October. William Einstein visited and encouraged her to write about her painting. Rodakiewicz shifted between living at the Shelton Hotel and the Stieglitz-O’Keeffe penthouse apartment. Visited O’Keeffe in late August/early September with the Bok-Rodakiewicz family, who were driving cross-country from California to New York, and went on to see Stieglitz at Lake George before staying at the Stieglitz-O’Keeffe apartment in New York.

126. 1940, Oct.

     Purchased the adobe house she had been renting at Ghost Ranch. Frequently used a ladder to climb to the flat roof for perspectives of sky and landscape.

127. 1940, Oct.-Dec.

     Exhibited at An American Place with Dove and Marin.

128. 1941, May-Nov.

     Lived at Ghost Ranch. Aspiring writer Maria Chabot, whom O’Keeffe knew from Alcalde, became her seasonal housekeeper in exchange for room and board, and orchestrated camping trips to surrounding areas for O’Keeffe to paint.

129. 1941, Oct.-Nov.

     Exhibited at An American Place with Dove, Marin, Pablo Picasso, and Stieglitz. Rodakiewicz, living separately from family to work in New York, visited Beverly Hills and reported warmth from the children but a change in Peggy.

130. 1942

     Peggy Bok and Henwar Rodakiewicz divorced. World War II greatly impacted northern New Mexico, as Hispanic, Native American, and Anglo New Mexicans served in the military, and some became prisoners of war at Bataan. The war, gas rationing, tire shortages, and the departure into the military or to war-time industrial jobs of local ranch hands and other personnel, caused a downturn in the northern New Mexico tourism industry. Ghost Ranch became increasingly self-sufficient in adaptation to circumstances, as New Mexicans turned back in time to using kerosene lamps and travel by wagon and horseback. Amenities provided to O’Keeffe in the past as part of the Pack operation, including fresh food and household repairs, become in short supply. Chabot took increasing responsibility for maintenance of the household.

131. 1942

     Rodakiewicz registered as a conscientious objector and continued work with Film Associates until assigned to the Office of War Information Film Unit.

132. 1942, May-June

     Received honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of Wisconsin. Story on her as recipient of this honor featured on the cover of the June issue (vol. 28, no. 6) of Equal Rights, the periodical of the National Woman’s Party. Rodakiewicz lived at the Shelton Hotel and frequently had meals with Stieglitz.

133. 1942, Oct.

     Moved to a smaller apartment at 59 East 54th Street in Manhattan, with Stieglitz, walking distance for him to An American Place.

134. 1943, Jan.-Feb.

     First major retrospective exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago. The first such show by the museum dedicated to a woman artist, it was curated by Daniel Catton Rich.

135. 1943, Mar.-May

     Exhibited at An American Place.

136. 1943, Apr.-Oct.

     Lived at Ghost Ranch. J. Robert Oppenheimer’s Manhattan Project developed an increasing yet secret presence at nearby Los Alamos, and government personnel related to the project took up residence at the Pack property.

137. 1944, Jan.-Mar.

     Exhibited pelvis bone and cottonwood tree series at An American Place. Wrote to Eleanor Roosevelt about true democracy being based on men and women standing equal under the sky.

138. 1944, Apr.-Oct.

     Lived at Ghost Ranch. Wrote to Rodakiewicz about seeing Mount Pedernal floating light blue in the distance like a dream. Pedernal was long a sacred site to Native Americans.

139. 1944, July-Nov.

     Exhibition of Stieglitz collection of European and modern art photography and painting at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, curated by O’Keeffe with Carl Zigrosser and Henry Clifford.

140. 1945

     Garland died at age 75.

141. 1945, Jan.-Mar.

     Exhibited at An American Place.

142. 1945, May-Oct.

     Lived in New Mexico. Purchased an abandoned adobe house in the village of Abiquiu in the Chama River Valley from the Archdiocese of Santa Fe. The house, in modest setting, offered sweeping views, water rights, and soil suitable for an organic garden. Chabot oversaw renovations for the next three years. Rodakiewicz paid an intimate visit on a trip to New Mexico.

143. 1945, July 16

     Trinity test of the atomic bomb at Alamogordo, New Mexico.

144. 1945, Aug. 6

     Atomic bomb dropped by the United States on Hiroshima, Japan, followed three days later by another on Nagasaki, with enormous destruction, disability, and loss of life.

145. 1945, Aug. 14

     End of war with Japan.

146. 1946, Feb.-Mar.

     Exhibited at An American Place.

147. 1946, May-Aug.

     Solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, organized by James Johnson Sweeney.

148. 1946, June-July

     Lived in Abiquiu. Began series of abstract paintings of her patio door.

149. 1946, July 10

     Notified by Rodakiewicz that Stieglitz had a severe stroke and was hospitalized in critical condition, urging her immediate return to Manhattan. Flew to New York to be at Stieglitz’s bedside.

150. 1946, July 13

     Alfred Stieglitz died in New York.

151. 1946, Fall

     Returned to Abiquiu.

152. 1946-1949

     Lived mostly in New York and summered in New Mexico while settling Stieglitz estate. Organized Stieglitz’s substantial collection of art, photography, and manuscripts, and allocated donations of materials to repositories, including photographic materials to the Library of Congress and art work and varied materials to the National Gallery of Art, the Phillips Collection, the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago and several other museums, and major manuscript materials to the Beinecke Library at Yale University.

153. 1947

     Organized major exhibition of Stieglitz’s collection at the Museum of Modern Art. The show traveled to the Art Institute of Chicago as a second venue in 1948.

154. 1947

     Featured in a segment of Rodakiewicz’s tourism-oriented film The Southwest (Land of Enchantment: Southwest USA). Her disenchantment with his portrayal of her, combined with Rodakiewicz’s arrival in Abiquiu for the shoot with a young female assistant, caused a permanent rift in the previously close friendship.

155. 1949

     Moved permanently to New Mexico, shifting between her house at Ghost Ranch and her renovated home and organic garden in Abiquiu. Installed an exhibition of Stieglitz collection art works donated to Fisk University in Nashville, Tenn. Elected to the National Institute of Art and Letters.

156. 1950, Oct.-Nov.

     Exhibited new work created from 1946 to 1950 at An American Place, as the last show before the gallery permanently closed. Rodakiewicz went to see the show and recognized works he had seen when he was in New Mexico. He expressed sadness about the closing and not hearing from O’Keeffe when she was in New York, but observed that the gallery should end as it began, with her art. Rodakiewicz later married Russia-born artist Olga Kotchoukova.

157. 1951-1961

     Edith Gregor Halpert of the Downtown Gallery in New York became O’Keeffe’s new art dealer and gallery space in Manhattan.

     Exhibited at the Downtown Gallery until the mid-1960s.

     Rafted on the Colorado River with friends and traveled on international trips to Mexico (in 1951, with Spuds Johnson and Eliot Porter, meeting Frieda Kahlo and Diego Rivera), France and Spain, and Peru, the Far East, Southeast Asia, India, the Middle East, and Italy, followed by a tour of Japan, Formosa, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, and Pacific Islands.

158. 1971-1986

     Continued to paint until eyesight impairment due to macular degeneration in 1971. Retained international reputation as a celebrity artist, represented by Doris Bry. Employed Juan Hamilton as an assistant in 1973. Traveled to Morocco, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Hawaii.

159. 1976, Feb 12

     Rodakiewicz died in New York.

160. 1986, Mar. 6

     Died under the Hamilton family’s care at St. Vincent’s Hospital, Santa Fe, N.M. Her ashes were scattered on Mount Pedernal.