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Charcoal on paper, 24 x 18 5/8 inches
CR No. 50
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Milwaukee Art Museum, Gift of Jane Bradley Pettit Foundation and the Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation M1997.189
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CR No. 50
Title (1999 Catalogue Raisonné)
Early Abstraction
Source of title: Abiquiú Notebooks after 1977.
Alternate Title
Untitled (Early Abstraction)
“Untitled (Early Abstraction)”: Original title on MAM catalogue card--Untitled was later crossed out. Title before updated on object information revision form in object file by registrar Melissa Hartley on Janaury 22, 2008. (Source: MAM, 2025)
General Remarks
Not recorded Whitney Archive, Downtown Gallery Archive. A February 1916 letter from Anita Pollitzer to O'Keeffe refers to the bundle of charcoal drawings she received from O'Keeffe in late December 1915 and took to Stieglitz on 1 January 1916. Pollitzer reports showing these works to Alon Bement in February, the Teachers College, Columbia University, professor who introduced O'Keeffe to the ideas of Arthur Wesley Dow in 1912, when she attended Bement's summer course at the University of Virginia. Dow's ideas greatly influenced the subsequent development of O'Keeffe's art. Pollitzer sketched this drawing in her letter, saying it was selected by Bement to show Dow, then head of the art department at Teachers College (Lovingly Georgia [1990], pp. 138–39). The first publication that fully explored the significance of Dow's ideas on O'Keeffe's subsequent development was Becoming O'Keeffe (1991) by Sarah Whitaker Peters. (Source: Lynes, 1999)
Inscriptions
Verso: "Georgia O'Keeffe Early 1916?" (graphite). Backing: "Georgia O'Keeffe" (black ink) (Source: Lynes, 1999)
Technique
Drawing
Materials
Charcoal on paper
Extended Medium Description
Charcoal on medium thick, cream, moderately textured laid paper; Watermark: INGRES PMF (ITALIA)
(Source: Paper Survey researched by Judith C. Walsh and published in Lynes, 1999.)
2001–2002
Georgia O'Keeffe Museum (as O'Keeffe's O'Keeffes: The Artist's Collection)
Milwaukee Art Museum (as O'Keeffe's O'Keeffes: The Artist's Collection)
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (as O'Keeffe's O'Keeffes: The Artist's Collection)
2007–2008
Georgia O'Keeffe Museum (as Georgia O'Keeffe and the Women of the Stieglitz Circle)
High Museum of Art (as Georgia O'Keeffe and the Women of the Stieglitz Circle)
Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (as Georgia O'Keeffe and the Women of the Stieglitz Circle)
2009–2010
Whitney Museum of American Art (as Georgia O'Keeffe: Abstraction)
The Phillips Collection (as Georgia O'Keeffe: Abstraction)
Georgia O'Keeffe Museum (as Georgia O'Keeffe: Abstraction)
2021–2022
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza (as Georgia O'Keeffe: The Painter's Lens)
Centre Georges Pompidou (as Georgia O'Keeffe: The Painter's Lens)
Fondation Beyeler (as Georgia O'Keeffe: The Painter's Lens)
1997–1998
[1] Estate of the artist [1887–1986] (Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA); [2] 1993, Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation (Abiquiu, New Mexico, USA); [3] December 26, 1997, purchased by Jane Bradley Pettit Foundation (Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA) and gift to Milwaukee Art Museum (Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA)
NOTES:
[1], [2] Barbara Buhler Lynes, Georgia O'Keeffe: Catalogue Raisonné. Vol. 1 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press; Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art; Abiquiu, NM: The Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation, 1999), p. 53, cat. 50.
[3] Agreement in MAM object file
(Source: MAM, 2025)
© Georgia O'Keeffe Museum
Version History
Core fields last updated 5/20/2026
Last verified by current collection Dec 15 2025
Source System ID
8250
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Georgia O'Keeffe. Early Abstraction, 1915. Access O’Keeffe, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, https://access-ok.okeeffemuseum.org/object/8250.