O'Keeffe Watercolors

Watercolors and other works created in Texas

Train at Night in the Desert approaches with large belows of smoke coming. The painting is abstract with simple lines and shapes
Train at Night in the Desert, 1916. Watercolor on paper. Permission to display is from the Amarillo Museum of Art. The original work is part of the museum's permanent collection.

The most complete list of all the works of art that O'Keeffe created while living in Texas can be found in Georgia O'Keeffe: Catalogue Raisonne by Barbara Buhler Lynes. Almost all of O'Keeffe's life-long body of work, over 2,000 objects, is included and arranged in order chronologically. When possible, each description details where and when the piece was created.

Georgia O'Keeffe: Watercolors catalogs the first major exhibition titled "Georgia O'Keeffe's Far Wide Texas" (04/29/2016 -10/30-2016, Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe, NM) of the nearly 50 watercolors created by O'Keeffe between 1916 and 1918, while she lived in Canyon, Texas. It is the most complete set of reproductions of those watercolors available and unique for its research specific to the topic of O'Keeffe's Texas watercolors. This book was written by Dr. Amy Von Lintel, Associate Professor of Art History at West Texas & University in Canyon, Texas.

O'Keeffe lived in Amarillo, Texas from 1912 to 1914, but the Catalogue Raisonne has very few works listed for those years. Most were probably lost or destroyed. Except for Untitled (Portrait of Dorothy True), also known as Lady with Red Hair, it is unclear if any of the items listed were created when she was teaching art in the Amarillo public schools.

There are approximately 125 objects that date from the summer of 1916, when O'Keeffe moved to Canyon, Texas, until the summer of 1918, when she moved to New York City. These include works she created in Colorado and the San Antonio area. It is not known how much art from 1916 to 1918 did not survive after the move to New York.

"When I knew I was going to stay in New York, I sent for things I had left in Texas. They came in a barrel and among them were all my old drawings and paintings. I put them in with the wastepaper trash to throw away and that night when Stieglitz and I came home after dark the paintings and drawings were blowing all over the street. We left them there and went in. But I remember a large watercolor of many hollyhocks sticking out of a big wastecan." Georgia O'Keeffe by Georgia O'Keeffe. New York: Viking Press, 1976, unpaginated, text accompanying Plate 16.

Examples of her work listed below have online images available to view.

Untitled (Horse), 1914.

Untitled (Horse), Oil on cardboard, from the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Collections Online. A sample of her work from 1914, not necessarily a work created in Texas.

Evening, 1916.

Evening, watercolor on paper, from the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Collections Online.

Morning Sky with Houses, 1916.

Morning Sky with Houses, watercolor and graphite on paper, from the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Collections Online.

Train at Night in the Desert, 1916.

Train at Night in the Desert (MoMA), watercolor and pencil on paper, from the Museum of Modern Art, New York. (Note: a 1916 charcoal drawing of the same title, but different style was O'Keeffe's first sale.)

Train at Night in the Desert, 1916.

Train at Night in the Desert approaches with large belows of smoke coming. The painting is abstract with simple lines and shapes
Train at Night in the Desert, 1916. Watercolor on paper. Permission to display is from the Amarillo Museum of Art. The original work is part of the museum's permanent collection.

Sunrise and Little Clouds, 1916.

Sunrise and Little Clouds, watercolor on paper, from the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Collections Online.

House with Tree, Red, 1916.

House with Tree, Red, 1916. Abstract watercolor painting on rice paper of a house and tree at night. The house is red, sky a night blue, and tree and bushes a dark blue
House with Tree, Red, 1916. Watercolor on rice paper. Collection of the New Mexico Museum of Art, Gift of the Estate of Georgia O'Keeffe, 1993. Our thanks to the New Mexico Museum of Art for permission to display this image.

No. 15 Special, 1916/1917.

No. 15 Special, charcoal on paper, from the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Drawing XIII (No. 13 Special), 1916/1917?

Drawing XIII, charcoal on paper, from Metropolitan Museum of Art, Heilbrun Timeline of Art History. O'Keeffe mistakenly dated the work as 1915. She did not live in Texas in 1915.

Roof with Snow, 1917.

Roof with Snow. Red patches of snow on a dark roof. The watercolor painting is abstract with simple lines and shapes
Roof with Snow, 1917. Watercolor on paper. Permission to display is from the Amarillo Museum of Art. The original work is part of the museum's permanent collection.

Chicken in Sunrise, 1917 .

Chicken in Sunrise, watercolor on paper, from the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Nude Series, 1917.

Nude Series, watercolor on paper, from the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Collections Online.

Nude Series XII, 1917.

Nude Series XII, watercolor on paper, from the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Collections Online.

Untitled (Abstraction/Portrait of Paul Strand), 1917.

Untitled (Abstraction/Portrait of Paul Strand), watercolor on paper, from the Art Inventories Catalog, Smithsonian Institution Research Information System. Private collection.

Portrait - W - III, 1917 .

Portrait - W - III, watercolor on paper, from the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Collections Online.

Evening Star No. III, 1917.

Evening Star No. III, watercolor on paper, from Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Evening Star No. VI, 1917.

Evening Star No. VI, watercolor on paper, from the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Collections Online.

Evening Star, 1917.

Evening Star, watercolor on paper, from Yale Digital Commons.

Light Coming on the Plains No. I, 1917.

Light Coming on the Plains No.1. Abstract watercolor painting of sunrise with a series of varying-blue half circles
Light Coming on the Plains No. I, 1917. Watercolor on paper (newsprint). Our thanks to the Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas for permission to display this image.

Light Coming on the Plains No. II, 1917.

Light Coming on the Plains No. II. Abstract watercolor painting of sunrise with blue night transitions to white
Light Coming on the Plains No. II, 1917. Watercolor on paper (newsprint). Our thanks to the Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas for permission to display this image and for clarifying that this is actually No. II.

Light Coming on the Plains No. III, 1917.

Light Coming on the Plains No. III. Abstract watercolor painting of sunrise with blue night transitions to white
Light Coming on the Plains No. III, 1917. Watercolor on paper (newsprint). Our thanks to the Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas for permission to display this image and for clarifying that this is actually No. III.

House with Tree - Green, 1918.

House with Tree - Green, watercolor and graphite on paper, from the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Collections Online.

The Flag, 1918.

The Flag, watercolor on paper, from the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Untitled (Woman with Black Shawl), 1918 .

Untitled (Woman with Black Shawl), watercolor and graphite on paper, from the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Collections Online.

Tree and Picket Fence, 1918.

Tree and Picket Fence, watercolor on paper, from the Milwaukee Art Museum.