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Georgia O'Keeffe Museum: Access O'Keeffe
Georgia O'Keeffe
Ladder to the Moon, 1958
Courtesy of Whitney Museum of American Art.
Image: okeeffe_CR1335_ladder-to-the-moon_858538.jpg
Georgia O'Keeffe
Ladder to the Moon, 1958
Oil on canvas, 40 3/16 x 30 1/4 inches
CR No. 1335
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift from the Emily Fisher Landau Collection
Oil on canvas, 40 3/16 x 30 1/4 inches
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift from the Emily Fisher Landau Collection
CR No. 1335

A light brown ladder floats in an expanse of teal blue evening sky. The ladder leads towards a small, white moon at the top of the canvas. The dark green form of Pedernal and the surrounding landscape stretches out below.

CR No. 1335

Title (1999 Catalogue Raisonné)

Ladder to the Moon

Source of title: Downtown Gallery Archive, Abiquiú Notebooks, Whitney Archive in 1969.

General Remarks

O'Keeffe wrote: "At the Ranch house there is a strong handmade ladder to the roof.... One evening I was waiting for a friend and stood leaning against the ladder looking at the long dark line of the Pedernal. The sky was a pale greenish blue, the high moon looking white in the evening sky. Painting the ladder had been in my mind for a long time and there it was — with the dark Pedernal and the high white moon — all ready to be put down the next day" (Georgia O'Keeffe [1976], unpaginated, text accompanying entry 102). See cat. no. 1337. (Source: Lynes, 1999)

Inscriptions

Stretcher: inaccessible Verso: inaccessible (Source: Lynes, 1999)

Technique

Oil Painting

Materials

Oil on canvas

1958- collection of the artist; -2024 collection of Emily Fisher Landau (acquired from Georgia O'Keeffe Estate, New Mexico); 2024 Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (gift of Emily Fisher Landau)
(Source: Whitney Museum of American Art, 2025)

Credits & Rights

© Georgia O'Keeffe Museum

Administrative Information

Version History

Core fields last updated 3/30/2026

Last verified by current collection Sep 15 2025

Source System ID

9445

Other IDs

1335, Catalogue Raisonné