Step Inside Georgia O'Keeffe's Ghost Ranch Studio
By Chadd Scott on
Georgia O’Keeffe had studios in Abiquiú, NM and on her Ghost Ranch property 15 miles away. Through June 2, 2024, she also has one in Montreal. Canada.
The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts has meticulously recreated O’Keeffe’s Ghost Ranch studio with original and replica furnishings thanks to an unprecedented partnership with the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe. O’Keeffe’s studio notably includes her original easel and an unfinished painting, as well as brushes she trimmed herself, pastels that she made herself, her paint cards for recording her precise colors, and even her tools for stretching her canvases.
Both artists filled their rural workspaces with objects collected from nature. On their daily excursions and travels, they collected stones, animal skulls and bones, gnarled roots or pieces of wood, and coiled seashells. These items were central to their artistic creation.
The faithful recreation of their respective studios enables the public to see how these found objects shaped their creation and inspired some of their most important works. Obviously in O’Keeffe’s case – her paintings from New Mexico were famously filled with bones and skulls – less so in Moore’s sculptures.
The exhibition is organized by the San Diego Museum of Art with credit for the unlikely pairing going to its Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs, Anita Feldman. Feldman previously served for 18 years on the Moore Authentication Committee at the Henry Moore Foundation.
“The first time she visited Ghost Ranch and saw Georgia O'Keeffe’s studio, she was like, ‘oh my god, Henry Moore would love this!’” Iris Amizlev, Curator – Community Engagement and Projects at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, said. “It was full of shells and bones and stones and driftwood, and that's exactly the same things that he collected. That's when she had the idea of making an exhibition to juxtapose the two artists together for the first time.”
Both artists have been highly renowned, exhibited and studied for more than 50 years, yet no one had previously made the connection. Simply observing their respective finished products, the connection eluded even the most astute scholars, but seeing their studios, with their personal collections of bones and shells, even a rank amateur would be instantly taken aback by the resemblance.
“It’s so clear, but until you realize that was what the exhibition is going to be about, you’re (skeptical),” Amizlev said. “The connections between the two artists, once I got into the project, I was like, ‘whoa, this is more than I could have imagined.’”
Both workspaces are surprisingly small. Both are crowded with items from nature that would inspire their work. Moore’s features a rhinoceros skull. O’Keeffe’s an elk antler. And a whale vertebra. And a ram’s horn.
“The shells in the (O’Keeffe) studio are my collection,” Amizlev admitted. “They weren't allowed to travel from the States into Canada. I said, ‘well, by the way, I have a collection of shells and rocks.’”
Georgia O’Keeffe Seashell Paintings
In addition to the studio replicas, “O’Keeffe and Moore” displays a staggering number of important pieces from both artists. While the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum supplied a majority of her works on view, signature loans from prestigious institutions across America also pitched in, making the exhibition something of an O’Keeffe greatest hits survey.
Eight or 10 could highlight any O’Keeffe collection at any museum in the world. Particularly striking are a pair of luminescent seashell paintings.
Red Hill and White Shell (1938) from the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston places a white moon snail shell in front of a crimson northern New Mexico mountain creating a strikingly beautiful contradiction. The beauty of Pink Shell with Seaweed (1938) from the San Diego Museum of Art may bring visitors to their knees.
After closing in Montreal, “O’Keeffe and Moore: Giants of Modern Art” – and their studios – travel to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston from October 13, 2024, to January 20, 2025.
Georgia O'Keeffe, 'Pink Shell with Seaweed,' ca 1938. Pastel on board. The San Diego Museum of Art, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Norton S. Walbridge.
Historic Artists Homes and Studios
O’Keeffe’s Abiquiú and Ghost Ranch studios remain open to the public for visits. As does Moore’s estate with its variety of gardens and studios in England.
The Abiquiú property is part of the Historic Artists’ Homes and Studios program, a coalition of 55 museums that were once the homes and working studios of American artists. Each site offers fascinating insight into the artist and artworks created there.
A majority of locations are concentrated in the Northeast devoted to artists such as Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock, Winslow Homer, N.C. Wyeth, and Edward Hopper, but the historic homes and studios of prominent Western artists are included in the program as well. The (Eanger Irving) Couse-(Joseph Henry) Sharp Historic Site in Taos, an hour’s drive from Abiquiu, and the C.M. Russell Museum in Great Falls, MT, being primary among them.
Artist studio buffs will also enjoy visiting the Whitney Western Art Museum inside the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, WY for a recreation of Frederic Remington’s studio.
