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Georgia O'Keeffe Museum: Access O'Keeffe
Georgia O'Keeffe
New York – Night, 1926
Courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg.
Image: okeeffe_CR530_new-york-night_863341.jpg
Georgia O'Keeffe
New York – Night, 1926
Oil on canvas, 32 1/2 x 12 inches
CR No. 530
Gift of Charles C. & Margaret Stevenson Henderson in memory of Hunt Henderson
Oil on canvas, 32 1/2 x 12 inches
Gift of Charles C. & Margaret Stevenson Henderson in memory of Hunt Henderson
CR No. 530

In this semiabstract composition, lines spring from a point on the lefthand side of the work, interrupting a smooth, white surface. A band of color runs diagonally from the bottom left to the top right of the work and transitions from bluish-white at the bottom to bright yellow at the top.

CR No. 530

Title (1999 Catalogue Raisonné)

New York – Night

Source of title: Whitney Archive, Abiquiú Notebooks.

Alternate Title (1999 Catalogue Raisonné)

Madison Avenue

Source of title: Downtown Gallery Archive.

Alternate Title

New York – Night (Madison Avenue)

Source of title: Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg.

Selected Exhibition Titles

New York - Night
Views of the City, 2000, Georgia O'Keeffe Museum (Santa Fe)

General Remarks

Hunt Henderson owned this work and Red Poppy (see cat. entry 638), according to his heirs. Yet entries in Whitney Archive and Abiquiú Notebooks associate Henderson with New York – Night, a 1927 painting, which was no. 1 in the 1928 New York (Intimate Gallery) checklist. Neither entry included measurements for the piece originally, but at some point Doris Bry wrote '48 x 30'into the Abiquiú Notebooks entry. The painting owned by Henderson measures 32 x 12. Downtown Gallery Archive titles the Henderson painting 'Madison Avenue, 1926'and indicates that Henderson purchased it from the Intimate Gallery. In 1929 letters from Stieglitz to Henderson that refer to his purchases, Stieglitz wrote; 'She [O'Keeffe] is delighted that you are to have the white abstraction with the wild red picture you have of her's'(22 March 1929, museum files); 'Did I ever acknowledge your kind letter of May 22 in which you tell me that the paintings arrived [an O'Keeffe and a Marin] and how you enjoyed particularly the white O'Keeffe" (30 October 1929, museum files). And in a 1955 letter to Edith Halpert, O'Keeffe mentions both paintings purchased by Henderson: "One [New York painting] that! think would be very good to have [for an exhibition Halpert had written her about] was owned by a New Orleans Sugar man named Henderson. He also had a large Red Poppy. The N.Y Night 27 is an abstract thing—very simple—and I think very good" (O'Keeffe to Edith Halpert, 7 May 1955, Archive of American Art). Because the painting was exhibited in 1928 and listed as New York—Night on the Intimate Gallery checklist, O'Keeffe and Irvine titled it as such and dated it 1927, as the painting was not available for examination. This date error was repeated in Abiquiú Notebooks. How the work came to be titled Madison Avenue in Downtown Gallery Archive is unclear. (Source: Lynes, 1999)

Inscriptions

Stretcher: 1. "Georgia O'Keeffe / 1926" (black ink) 2. "#C / New Orleans" (George Of, graphite) 3. "Stieglitz" (George Of, graphite) 4. #cat no 35" (unidentified hand, black ink). Verso: 1. G. O'Keeffe / 1926" (white paint) 2. hand print (grey/blue paint) (Source: Lynes, 1999)

Technique

Oil Painting

Materials

Oil on canvas

(The Intimate Gallery, New York, NY); sold to Hunt Henderson [1872–1939], New Orleans, LA, before March 22, 1929; by descent to Charles C. [1920–2016] and Margaret S. Henderson [d. 1980], New Orleans, LA; given to the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, FL, June 14, 1971.
(Source: Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, 2025)

Credits & Rights

© Georgia O'Keeffe Museum

Administrative Information

Version History

Core fields last updated 5/20/2026

Last verified by current collection Sep 11 2025

Source System ID

8604

Other IDs

530, Catalogue Raisonné