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Oil on canvas, 40 3/16 x 30 1/4 inches
CR No. 1335
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Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift from the Emily Fisher Landau Collection
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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
1999–2000
Georgia O'Keeffe Museum (as Georgia O'Keeffe: The Poetry of Things)
Dallas Museum of Art (as Georgia O'Keeffe: The Poetry of Things)
1966
1993–1994
Hayward Gallery (as Georgia O'Keeffe: American & Modern)
Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes (as Georgia O'Keeffe: American & Modern)
Yokohama Museum of Art (as Georgia O'Keeffe: American & Modern)
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
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)
© Georgia O'Keeffe Museum
Version History
Core fields last updated 3/30/2026
Last verified by current collection Sep 15 2025
Source System ID
9445
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Georgia O'Keeffe. Ladder to the Moon, 1958. Access O’Keeffe, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, https://access-ok.okeeffemuseum.org/object/9445.