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The Arts Intel Report

A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler

Georgia O'Keeffe: My New Yorks

Georgia O’Keeffe, East River from the 30th Story of the Shelton Hotel, 1928.

Until Feb 16, 2025
1280 Peachtree St NE, Atlanta, GA 30309, United States

Mention Georgia O’Keeffe and most think of huge flowers. Yet the “mother of American Modernism” produced a wide range of work. Born in Wisconsin in 1887, O’Keeffe moved to New York in 1918, at age 30, and six years later took up residence in the newly built Shelton Hotel, then the tallest residential skyscraper in the world. She inhabited a high floor for five years, and used the elevation to understand the city’s structure and to draw from its energy. O’Keeffe painted the sunspots she saw on adjacent buildings in shimmering whites and yellows, captured gargoyle-esque skyscrapers in the dead of night, and agonized over portrayals of the skyline and steamers on the Hudson River. “One can’t paint New York as it is,” she said, “but rather as it is felt.” Her cityscapes are the subject of this show. —Elena Clavarino

Photo: New Britain Museum of American Art, Stephen B. Lawrence Fund, 1958