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Charcoal on paper, 24 1/4 x 18 13/16 inches
CR No. 99
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Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1969
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Looping black lines run across the paper, encircling the head and neck of a reclining person. A small, teardrop-shaped form in the center of the face denotes the person's lips. These forms are set against the plain white background of exposed paper.
CR No. 99
Title (1999 Catalogue Raisonné)
Abstraction
Source of title: Whitney Archive.
Alternate Title (1999 Catalogue Raisonné)
Abstraction, IX
Source of title: Downtown Gallery Archive.
Abstraction No. 9
Source of title: Downtown Gallery Archive.
Abstraction No. IX
Source of title: Abiquiú Notebooks.
Alternate Title
Abstraction IX
Source of title: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
General Remarks
Inscription on fragment of original backing in Metropolitan Museum of Art file indicates, "Abstraction, IX charcoal"(Stieglitz, First Municipal Art Exhibition label, black ink). Whitney Archive indicates, "Infor. from Miss Bry (An Amer. Place), July 1949: 'Abstraction, No. 11' 1915. Charcoal. Was in MOMA O'Keeffe exh. On permanent loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art from Georgia O'Keeffe as part of the Alfred Stieglitz Coll." Abiquiú Notebooks indicates, "Note: Part of the Alfred Stieglitz Collection at Met under the title: 'Abstraction No. 11,' 1915, charcoal, 24 1/4 x 18 7/8." Whitney Archive, Abiquiú Notebooks mistakenly identify as "Drawing No. 11 Special," and Abiquiú Notebooks confuses this entry with Special XIII, see cat. no. 157, whose backing has label inscribed, albeit mistakenly, "Drawing No. 11 Special" (Alfred Stieglitz, An American Place, black ink). There is no known work title "Drawing No. 11 Special." Whitney Archive, Abiquiú Notebooks date 1915; O'Keeffe dates 1916 and indicates inspired by fall 1916 camping trip: "Abstraction IX was first made with charcoal, then it was painted many times with red, and I finally went back to the charcoal. ... I had been walking for a couple of weeks with a girl in the big woods somewhere in the North Carolina mountains. One morning before daylight, as I was combing my hair, I turned and saw her lying there—one arm thrown back, hair a dark mass against the white, the face half turned, the red mouth. It all looked warm with sleep" (Some Memories of Drawings [1988], unpaginated). Date confirmed on basis of Stieglitz–O'Keeffe correspondence. Pictured in 1917 New York (291) Stieglitz installation photograph, see Appendix III, figure 4. Another work in this series is known only through 1917 New York (291) Stieglitz installation photograph, see Appendix II, no. 7 and Appendix III, figure 8. (Source: Lynes, 1999)
Technique
Drawing
Materials
Charcoal on paper
Extended Medium Description
Charcoal on moderately thick, cream, slightly textured laid paper*
Watermark: INGRES PMF (ITALIA)
1917
1946–1947
Whitney Museum of American Art
University of Michigan, Museum of Art
Springfield Museums
Delaware Art Museum
Baltimore Museum of Art
Phillips Memorial Gallery
New Orleans Museum of Art
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Minnesota Museum of American Art
Columbus Museum of Art
Munson Museum
Smith College Museum of Art
1946
1966
Amon Carter Museum of American Art
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFA H)
1966
1987–1989
National Gallery of Art (NGA)
Art Institute of Chicago
Dallas Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met)
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)
1992–1993
The Phillips Collection
IBM Gallery of Science and Art
Minneapolis Institute of Arts
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFA H)
2009–2010
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Phillips Collection
Georgia O'Keeffe Museum
Henry Geldzahler in "Twentieth Century Art." The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Notable Acquisitions, 1965–1975. New York, 1975, p. 212, ill.
Lisa Mintz Messinger. "Georgia O'Keeffe." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 42 (Fall 1984), pp. 8–9, fig. 4.
Lisa Mintz Messinger. Georgia O'Keeffe. New York, 1988, pp. 15–17, 19, 21, 42, fig. 4.
Georgia O'Keeffe. Some Memories of Drawings. Ed. Doris Bry. Albuquerque, 1988, pp. 7, 21–23, 97–98, pl. 3.
Barbara Buhler Lynes. O'Keeffe, Stieglitz, and the Critics. Ann Arbor, Mich., 1989, pp. 63, 325 n. 68.
Sarah Whitaker Peters. Becoming O'Keeffe: The Early Years. New York, 1991, pp. 264–65, fig. 129.
Charles Child Eldredge. Georgia O'Keeffe. New York, 1991, p. 25, ill.
Elizabeth Montgomery. Georgia O'Keeffe. New York, 1993, p. 60, ill.
Anne Middleton Wagner. Three Artists (Three Women): Modernism and the Art of Hesse, Krasner, and O'Keeffe. Berkeley, 1996, pp. 56–58, fig. 12.
Katherine Hoffman. Georgia O'Keeffe: A Celebration of Music and Dance. New York, 1997, p. 47.
Barbara Buhler Lynes. Georgia O'Keeffe: Catalogue Raisonné. New Haven, Conn., 1999, vol. 1, p. 73, no. 99, ill.; vol. 2, p. 1110, app. 3, fig. 4.
Barbara Buhler Lynes in Sarah Greenough. Modern Art and America: Alfred Stieglitz and His New York Galleries. Exh. cat., National Gallery of Art. Washington, D. C., 2000, pp. 265–67, fig. 87a–e.
Lisa Mintz Messinger. Georgia O'Keeffe. London, 2001, pp. 24–25, fig. 9.
Peter-Cornell Richter. Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. New York, 2001, p. 49, ill.
Barbara Buhler Lynes with Russell Bowman. O'Keeffe's O'Keeffes: The Artist's Collection. Exh. cat., Milwaukee Art Museum. New York, 2001, p. 169.
Janet Souter. Georgia O'Keeffe. London, 2005, p. 8, fig. 5.
Janet Souter. Georgia O'Keeffe. New York, 2005, pp. 26–27, ill.
Susan Wright. Georgia O'Keeffe: An Eternal Spirit. (1st ed., 1996). [New York], 2006, pp. 22–23, ill.
Lisa Mintz Messinger in Stieglitz and His Artists: Matisse to O'Keeffe. The Alfred Stieglitz Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ed. Lisa Mintz Messinger. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2011, pp. 14, 196–97, 278, no. 179, ill. (color).
Sarah Greenough, ed. My Faraway One: Selected Letters of Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. Vol. 1, 1915–1933. New Haven, Conn., 2011, pp. 18, 110, 125, 144 n. 309, pp. 155, 197.
Barbara Buhler Lynes in O'Keeffe and Moore. Ed. Anita Feldman. Exh. cat., San Diego Museum of Art. San Diego, 2023, pp. 170, 174, fig. 2 (color).
The artist (1916–69; on extended loan to MMA, 1949–69; her gift as part of the Alfred Stieglitz Collection to MMA) (Source: The Met, 2025)
© Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met)
Version History
Core fields last updated 8/26/2026
Last verified by current collection
Source System ID
8291
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