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Oil on canvas, 48 1/4 x 30 1/4 inches
CR No. 527
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Gift of Leigh B. Block, 1985.206
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A tall gray skyscraper cuts through the center of the composition. A glowing white sun peeks out from behind the building, flooding the canvas with light. Golden sunspots appear throughout the work, and behind the skyscraper, undulating white clouds flow diagonally through the sky. Additional skyscrapers flank the central building on either side.
CR No. 527
Title (1999 Catalogue Raisonné)
The Shelton with Sunspots, N.Y.
Source of title: Whitney Archive, Downtown Gallery Archive, Abiquiú Notebooks.
Alternate Title (1999 Catalogue Raisonné)
The Shelton with Sun Spots – N.Y.
Source of title: Downtown Gallery label.
The Shelton, New York No. II
Source of title: Downtown Gallery label.
Shelton with Sunspots
Source of title: Downtown Gallery label.
General Remarks
Whitney Archive indicates, "Exam. at Mrs. Wiener's apartment, March 1946: No signature . . . [notes inscription 1]. Owned Mrs. Paul L. Wiener." Abiquiú Notebooks indicates, "Had been owned by Mrs. Paul L. Wiener (formerly Alma Morganthau Wertheim)." ‘'Shelton with Sun Spots' I think one of the best –– the one the Miller Co has" (O’Keeffe to Edith Halpert, 7 May 1955, Archive of American Art). O'Keeffe wrote: "I painted The Shelton with Sunspots in 1926. I went out one morning to look at it [the hotel] before I started to work and there was the optical illusion of a bite out of one side of the tower made by the sun, with sunspots against the building and against the sky. I made that painting beginning at the upper left and went off at the lower right without going back. There were several other Sheltons that I destroyed because they weren't as good as the Sunspots" (Georgia O'Keeffe [1976], unpaginated, text accompanying entry 19). Reproduced and titled The Shelton – New York: Sunspots in Creative Art (January 1928); titled Sunspots in Graphic Survey (March 1928); The Shelton – Sunspots in Social Calendar, (March 1930); and Shelton with Sunspots in Time (May 1946). (Source: Lynes, 1999)
Inscriptions
Backing: 1. "The Shelton with Sun Spots – N.Y. 1926 / By Georgia O'Keeffe" (Alfred Stieglitz, Label: printed, The Intimate Gallery, black ink) 2. Label: handwritten, "An American Place' / 509 Madison Ave —Room 1710 / (S.E. corner 53rd St) — New York"1 (Source: Lynes, 1999)
No markings recto. Inscribed bottom, middle, on canvas overlap, in graphite?: “94” [encircled]. Inscribed verso, top-left corner, on backing, in red ink: "1985.206"; inscribed verso, top-left, on backing, in white chalk: "3728"; inscribed verso, top-left, on backing, in black crayon: "Rofo-16160 [crossed out]; inscribed verso, top-left, on backing, in black crayon: "[...] 39 [underlined] / 3138"; stamped verso, top-left, on backing, in black ink: "AMERICAN PLACE / [...] MADISON AVE / NEW YORK - N. Y."; scratched verso, top-left, on backing: "BOX / B"; inscribed verso, top-middle, on backing, in black crayon: "RofO [36661]. Inscribed verso, top-left, on frame, in red ink: "1985.206". Label [rectangular, white] affixed verso, top-left, on backing, printed in blue ink: "ARTIST", typed in black ink: "GEORGIA O'KEEFE", printed: "NO / TITLE", typed: "SHELTON WITH SUNSPOTS", printed: "DATE / MEDIUM", typed: "Oil", printed: "SIZE", inscribed in graphite: "(", typed: "30 X 46", inscribed: "(48x30", printed: / THE DOWNTOWN GALLERY • 32 E. 51st St., New York"; label (rectangular, white) affixed verso, top-left, on backing, printed in black ink: "WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART / 945 MADISON AVENUE, NEW YORK, N.Y. 10021 / Artist”, typed in black ink: "Georgia O'Keeffe" / printed: "Title", typed: THE SHELTON WITH SUNSPOTS" / printed: "Date", typed: "1926", printed: "Catalogue No.", typed: "49" / printed: "Lender", typed: Inland Steel Company" [crossed out in blue ink] / inscribed in blue ink: "Leigh B. Block" / printed: "Exhibition", stamped in black ink: "GEORGIA O'KEEFFE / RETROSPECTIVE EXHIBITION / OCTOBER 8 - NOVEMBER 29, 1970"; label (rectangular, white) affixed verso, top-left, on backing, printed in orange ink: "SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF ART / REG. No.", typed in black ink: "166.71" / printed: "ARTIST", typed: "Georgia O'Keeffe" / printed: "TITLE", typed: "THE SHELTON WITH SUN SPOTS. 1926." / printed: "MEDIUM", typed: "oil on canvas", printed: "EX. DATES", typed: "3/19-4/25 1971." / printed: "EXHIBITION", typed: "GEORGIA O'KEEFFE: RETROSPECTIVE."; label [rectangular, brown] affixed verso, top-middle, on backing, inscribed in black ink: "The Shelton with SunSpots - N.Y. 1926 [underlined] / By Georgia O'Keeffe." / stamped in black ink: "AN AMERICAN PLACE / ROOM 1710-509 MADISON AVE / NEW YORK, - N. Y." / printed in black ink: "THE / INTIMATE / GALLERY [crossed out in graphite] / ROOM 303 / ANDERSON GALLERIES BUILDING / 489 PARK AVENUE AT FIFTY-NINTH STREET, NEW YORK / announces its Sixth Exhibition—January 11 to February 27, 1927 / FORTY NEW PAINTINGS BY GEORGIA O'KEEFFE"; label (rectangular, white) affixed verso, top-left, on backing, printed in black ink: "FROM / THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO / CHICAGO 3, ILLINOIS, U.S.A. // To" / typed: ""Shelton with Sunspots" / by Georgia O'Keeffe // Property of Inland Steel Co., Chicago, Ill. [scratched and crossed out with blue ink]" / inscribed in blue ink: "Leigh B. Block"; label [rectangular, white] affixed verso, middle-top, printed in black ink: "GEORGIA O'KEEFFE EXHIBITION // MAY 28 TO JULY 3, 1966 // THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, HOUSTON"; label (square, white and grey) affixed verso, middle, printed in blue and white ink, and typed in black ink: "AMON CARTER MUSEUM / EXHIBIT PAINTINGS BY / GEORGIA O'KEEFFE DATE March, 1966 / TITLE SHELTON WITH SUN SPOTS / ARTIST Georgia O'Keeffe 1926/ MEDIUM oil on Canvas / "DIM. 48" x 30" / CREDIT Mr. Joseph L. Block, Chicago, Illinois [crossed out in blue ink] / BOX NO. // 3501 CAMP BOWIE BOULEVARD MAIL ADDRESS BOX 2365 FORT WORTH TEXAS 76101"; stamp (rectangular, white, 2 perforated sides) affixed verso, top-middle, on backing, inscribed in red marker: "K-71"; label (rectangular, white) affixed verso, top-right, on backing, printed in black ink: "KUNSTSAMMLUNG NORDRHEIN-WESTFALEN [underlined] / George Grosz - Berlin/New York / 06/05/95 - 30/07/95, Düsseldorf / Kat. 3. 3 // 'The Shelton with Sunspots', 1926 // The Art Institute of Chicago"; stamp (rectangular, brown, 3 perforated sides) affixed verso, top-right, on backing, printed and typed in black ink: "Museum of Modern Art / LOAN / 46.767 / Wiener"; label (square, brown) affixed verso, top-right, inscribed in black marker: "MUSEUM OF MODERN / ART / 11 West 53rd [underlined] ST. / NEW YORK / N.Y."; label (rectangular, white) affixed verso, top-right, on backing, printed in black ink: "The Santa Barbara Museum of Art / 1130 STATE STREET • SANTA BARBARA, CALIFORNIA 93101 // ARTIST", typed, in black ink: "O'Keeffe, Georgia" / printed: "TITLE", typed: "SHELTON TH SUN SPOTS" / printed: "MEDIUM AND DATE", typed: "1926" / printed: "LENDER", typed: "Leigh B. Block / printed: "EXHIBITION", typed: "The Block Exhibition / printed: "EXHIBITION DATES", typed: "2/11/78=4/9/78"; label (rectangular, white) affixed verso, left-middle, on backing, printed in black ink: "Two Lives: O'Keeffe and Stieglitz / #89 / Georgia O'Keeffe / The Shelton with Sunspots / Crate 22"; label (rectangular, white) taped verso, left-middle, on backing, printed in black ink: "Kunsthaus Zürich, Heimplatz 1, 8001 Zürich / Ausstellung Georgia O'Keeffe, 24.10.2003 - 1.2.2004 // Kat.Kr.23 / Georgia O'Keeffe / The Shelton with sunspots, N.Y., 1926 / Öl auf Leinwand / 123,2 x 76,8 cm / The Art Institute of Chicago"; label (square, white) affixed verso, left-middle, on backing, printed in black ink: "BROOKLYN MUSEUM / Youth and Beauty: Art of the American Twenties / Venue: Brooklyn Museum, 10/28/2011 to 01/29/2012 / Venue: Dallas Museum of Art, 03/04/2012 to 05/27/2012 / Venue: Cleveland Museum of Art, 07/01/2012 to 09/16/2012 // EL66.75 / Georgia O'Keeffe / Shelton with Sunspots / Oil on canvas / 48 x 30 in. (121.9 x 76.2 cm) / Frame: 49 5/8 x 31 1/2 x 2 in. (126 x 80 x 5.1 cm) / The Art Institute of Chicago, gift of Leigh B. Block, 1985.206"; sticker (rectangular, white) affixed verso, right-middle, on backing, inscribed in graphite: 8070.2": label (rectangular, white) affixed verso, left-bottom, on backing, printed in black ink: "National Gallery of Art / Washington, DC" / inscribed in graphite: "Crate / 1" / printed: "Exhibition:", typed in black ink: "GEORGIA O'KEEFFE, 1887-1986" / printed: "Date:", typed: "1 Nov. 87 - 21 Feb. 88", printed: "Cat. #", typed: "057" / typed: "Artist:", typed: "Georgia O'Keeffe" / printed: "Title:", typed: "Shelton with Sunspots, New York" / printed: "Lender:", typed: "The Art Institute of Chicago"; sticker (square, white) affixed verso, right-bottom, printed in green ink: "S. B. M. A." / inscribed in blue ballpoint ink: "76/6/13". (Source: Art Institute of Chicago, 2025)
Technique
Oil Painting
Materials
Oil on canvas
2000–2001
1966
Amon Carter Museum of American Art (as Georgia O'Keeffe: An Exhibition of the Work of the Artist from 1915 to 1966)
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFA H) (as Georgia O'Keeffe: An Exhibition of the Work of the Artist from 1915 to 1966)
1970–1971
Whitney Museum of American Art (as Georgia O'Keeffe)
Art Institute of Chicago (as Georgia O'Keeffe)
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) (as Georgia O'Keeffe)
1987–1989
National Gallery of Art (NGA) (as Georgia O'Keeffe)
Art Institute of Chicago (as Georgia O'Keeffe)
Dallas Museum of Art (as Georgia O'Keeffe)
Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met) (as Georgia O'Keeffe)
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) (as Georgia O'Keeffe)
1992–1993
The Phillips Collection (as Two Lives Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz, A Conversation in Paintings and Photographs)
IBM Gallery of Science and Art (as Two Lives Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz, A Conversation in Paintings and Photographs)
Minneapolis Institute of Arts (as Two Lives Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz, A Conversation in Paintings and Photographs)
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFA H) (as Two Lives Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz, A Conversation in Paintings and Photographs)
2024–2025
Art Institute of Chicago (as Georgia O'Keeffe: "My New Yorks")
High Museum of Art (as Georgia O'Keeffe: "My New Yorks")
2016
Norton Museum of Art (as O'Keeffe, Stettheimer, Torr, Zorach: Women Modernists in New York)
Portland Museum of Art (Maine) (as O'Keeffe, Stettheimer, Torr, Zorach: Women Modernists in New York)
2003–2004
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)
1946
Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986), New York; with the Intimate Gallery, New York, by 1927; sold to Alma Morgenthau Wertheim (1887–1953), New York, 1927; to her daughter, Anne Wertheim Langman (1914–1996), New York, after 1946. The Downtown Gallery, New York, by 1957; sold to Leigh B. Block (1905–1987), Chicago, June 18, 1957 [invoice, no. 7639, June 18, 1957; copy in curatorial object file]; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1985. (Source: Art Institute of Chicago, 2025)
© Georgia O'Keeffe Museum
Version History
Core fields last updated 5/5/2026
Last verified by current collection Dec 10 2025
Source System ID
8602
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Conservation
Information is from the most recently submitted report, please contact the current owner to verify updated details.Information provided for Access O'Keeffe by Art Institute of Chicago in 2025.
The painting was executed on a medium-weight canvas with a warm white ground applied to the canvas prior to stretching; it covers most of the tacking margins on all sides. The right side features a visible edge to the priming as well as the selvage. The average thread count (standard deviation): (16.1)V (0.3) x (14.1)H (0.5) thr/cm. The vertical threads were determined to correspond to the warp and the horizontal threads were determined to correspond to the weft (thread count analysis by Don H. Johnson, March 2021). The method of execution, where each painted element is brought up to its neighbor, and the lack of compositional changes suggests the presence of an underdrawing, however no underdrawing is visible in reflected or transmitted infrared examination. Stereomicroscopic examination suggests local underdrawing in a friable media such as charcoal that, unfixed, was largely swept up into subsequent paint layers. A few stray fine lines, likely graphite, suggest additional changes and underdrawing, however, in many areas, there is no detectable underdrawing at all. The painting appears mostly executed wet-into-wet (or wet along wet) application. Technical images reveal no major changes to the composition, although there may have been slight adjustments made during the painting stage. Nature of the edges makes it challenging to discern the order of execution: in some areas, forms are brought up next to each other but not quite touching, leaving a small unpainted margin between them, such as the yellow sun spots at right. More widely, the edges of neighboring forms are worked up together to create a wet-in-wet ridge of partially blended paint along the interface. The bulk of the forms do not appear to have been worked up together, as the artist often added paint near the edges to achieve this effect, blending on top of the existing paint until the boundary between painting campaigns was visually eliminated. O’Keeffe employed a flat-ferrule brush with some pressure to push the paint into three-dimensional ridges along the edges of forms. Areas like the sun suggest initial application with a soft-bristle brush followed by textural working with a stiffer brush. The long, sweeping geometric forms throughout the architecture appear to be executed freehand, without the use of a straight edge.
According to archival research, the painting was treated by Caroline Keck in May 1946, which included cleaning and a spray application of polymerized butyl methacrylate. Prior to acquisition, the work was wax-resin lined and the stretcher replaced. It is not clear whether this treatment included cleaning and removing previous varnishes before lining, restretching and varnishing. The provenance of the work suggests the lining likely took place in the 1950s, before the work was in the collection of Leigh Block, who later gifted it to the Art Institute. UV image indicates scattered flake losses that have been filled and inpainted, especially in the whites including the top part of the sky, right of center; local areas to the left of the central building; and immediately surrounding the yellow sun spots right of the central building. The painting is in stable condition: the canvas is taut and planar, and the lining is in good condition with no visible areas of delamination or lumps. There is minimal cracking of the paint and only localized losses, with some associated with the frame/rabbet abrasion around the perimeter. Microcracking developed along the weave due to pressure from the lining. This is mostly present where the ground is exposed and in many areas it is broken through revealing the dark, lining-adhesive-saturated canvas. The current varnish imparts an even sheen overall and is fairly glossy and heavy for an O’Keeffe. Gray material in the depressions of the paint layer, especially noticeable in the lights, is likely old grime and varnish.
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COPY CITATION
Georgia O'Keeffe. The Shelton with Sunspots, N.Y., 1926. Access O’Keeffe, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, https://access-ok.okeeffemuseum.org/object/8602.