1940–1950: Abiquiu
Returning to "the faraway" in 1940, Georgia discovered
that someone else was renting her favorite house, Rancho de los
Burros. Anxious to get settled in and painting again, Georgia proposed
to buy the house and the surrounding eight acres, which were bounded
by ranchland and the Carson National Forest. She was glad to feel established,
and she adored her new home, which she painted often. She lived
in isolation at the ranch, which had no running water, electricity,
or telephone. The sandy soil prevented her from keeping a garden,
so she was forced to journey to purchase food. O’Keeffe realized
that she needed an assistant so that she would have time to paint,
and therefore hired a young girl, Maria Chabot, to help her with
domestic chores. Chabot admired O’Keeffe and even traveled to New
York to see her exhibitions.
Moreover, Chabot was a companion to O’Keeffe during their horse
rides and camping trips. They often went to the village of Abiquiu,
where grayish formations of ancient lava ash protruded into the
sky. Georgia called this "the White Place" and painted it many
times. In contrast, Georgia also discovered the sharp and vertical
dark hills of "the
Black Place", an area north of Ghost Ranch that
she painted in
abstraction in
Black Place III (1944).
In 1943 in Chicago, the
Art Institute announced its intentions
to present an O’Keeffe retrospective. Although it was difficult
for
Stieglitz to accept the fact that another institution besides
An American Place would have a major exhibition of O’Keeffe’s work,
he agreed to later show her newest paintings. At this time, O’Keeffe’s fame
was at its highest, but she realized that her disagreeable and sometimes
hostile attitudes towards other people were necessary to devote
her time to painting. She therefore continued to prefer isolation
and seclusion.
During the summer following her retrospective, O’Keeffe
stumbled across an old, bleached a pelvic bone that resembled the
shape of the mountains. This bone became the subject of a new set
of paintings, as O’Keeffe painted the pelvis red against the clear
blue of the sky. In her essay in the catalog of her work, she stated
that these paintings were acknowledging the war that was being fought
around her. In her painting the position of the bones is "most
wonderful against the Blue–that Blue that will always be there
as it is now after all man’s destruction is finished" (Lisle 257).
O’Keeffe’s use of the pelvic bone recalled her earlier paintings
in which she used animal skulls bones she found in the desert.
One particular painting, Cow’s Skull: Red, White and Blue (1931),
conveyed O’Keeffe’s view America.:
"I painted my cow’s head because I liked
it and in its way it was a symbol of the best part of America I
had found. Cattle were important to America, as I knew from my
days in Amarillo when they were only beginning to think about oilI
thought to myself ’Just for fun I will make it red, white, and
blue–a new kind of flag almost.’ It always amused me as my idea
of something American."
Drawn back to the village of Abiquiu, Georgia discovered
an abandoned hacienda, in ruin but still with the remains of a
large garden and access to water. She realized that she wanted
this property, which had an excellent view of the Chama River valley,
and she persisted in trying to buy it from its owner, the Catholic
church. Finally, in 1945 the property became hers and she proceeded
to renovate it. This eventually became her permanent home, and
visitors noticed the resemblance that the home had with O’Keeffe’s
personality: "The concordance between O’Keeffe’s rhythm and her
low adobe buildings, the quietness of the black door, the placement
of the garden, were a breath with her own being" (Cardona-Hine
135).
Back in New York, Stieglitz’s health was deteriorating,
as he turned eighty years old in 1944. His gallery, An American
Place, was no longer the epicenter of the art world, and his age
made him an ineffective manager. Other museums, such as New York’s Museum
of Modern Art, presented major exhibits for O’Keeffe, leaving Stieglitz’s
gallery forlorn. Nonetheless, he was happy that he had been an
important figure in establishing O’Keeffe’s career, bringing her
work out to be appreciated by many.
Every departure from Stieglitz was painful for Georgia,
but both realized that such departures were necessary for her sake
and vitality. In 1946, Georgia left for Abiquiu as she always had,
and afterward Stieglitz suffered from a stroke and was hospitalized. Diagnosed
with a cerebral thrombosis, his condition was critical and Georgia
flew back from New Mexico to be with him. He died on July 13, 1946.
Stieglitz’s death meant not only the loss of O’Keeffe’s
mentor and friend, but also her primary manager. Moreover, Georgia
was the executor of his will and had to find permanent places for
his large collection. She carefully committed to this task during
the winters when she was not in New Mexico. She also realized that
she could not keep Stieglitz’s gallery open; the last exhibit of
Georgia’s work in An American Place occurred in the autumn of 1950.
O’Keeffe returned to New Mexico in greater solitude and resumed
painting. Her works continued to receive wide acclaim, and in 1949
she was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters,
a prestigious honor for a female artist.
