When we are traveling, you can generally count on The Roaming Boomers to find their way into the local museums.

One of Santa Fe, New Mexico’s treasures is the Georgia O’Keefe Museum.

Here’s this from their website:

“The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, opened to the public in July 1997, eleven years after the death of the artist from whom it takes its name. Welcoming more than 2,225,000 visitors from all over the world and being the most visited art museum in the state of New Mexico, it is the only museum in the world dedicated to an internationally known American woman artist.

The Museum’s collection of over 3,000 works comprises 1,149 O’Keeffe paintings, drawings, and sculptures that date from 1901 to 1984, the year failing eyesight forced O’Keeffe into retirement. The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum is the largest single repository of O’Keeffe’s work in the world. Throughout the year, visitors can see a changing selection of these works. In addition, the Museum presents special exhibitions that are either devoted entirely to O’Keeffe’s work or combine examples of her art with works by her American modernist contemporaries.”

We spent a couple hours in this museum, and enjoyed learning more of Georgia O’Keefe’s life and work.

During the Roaring 20s, Georgia O’Keefe married internationally known photographer and art impresario, Alfred Stieglitz.  It is during this period that she created some controversy with her flower abstracts that resembled female genitalia (which she flatly denied), as well as Stieglitz’s photographic nude series with his now famous wife as the subject.

After her husband died in 1946, Georgia O’Keefe moved to New Mexico and began to paint the beautiful sandstone landscapes that surrounded her home.  Here work was so prolific, and her portrayal of these lands so beautiful, that the area near Abiquiu, New Mexico is now referred to as “O’Keefe Country”.

When you find yourself in Sante Fe, New Mexico, I would highly recommend a few hours spent in the Georgia O’Keefe Museum.  You will enjoy gazing at the world through her eyes and brush.

Note:  click on the thumbnails for a larger view.