For generations, legendary painter Georgia O'Keeffe has been synonymous with luminous flowers, sweeping desert landscapes and the rugged beauty of the American Southwest.
But this fall, the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) wants visitors to see her differently.
Taos Pueblo," 1929/1934. Collection of the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, Indianapolis." id="91695906007">
“Georgia O'Keeffe: Architecture,” opening Sept. 11, shines a spotlight on a lesser-known side of one of America's most celebrated artists: her lifelong fascination with buildings. From Manhattan skyscrapers to weathered barns and the sun-soaked adobe walls of New Mexico, the exhibition gathers nearly 40 works that reveal how O'Keeffe spent decades finding beauty,
mystery and meaning in the spaces people build.
It is the first exhibition devoted entirely to O'Keeffe's architectural paintings, tracing her vision across three dramatically different landscapes and asking visitors to look beyond the imagery that made her famous.
At the heart of the exhibition is “Stables” (1932), a painting from the DIA's permanent collection that serves as a kind of gateway into O'Keeffe's architectural world.
“The DIA has long been proud to count Georgia O’Keeffe’s ‘Stables’ among our most treasured holdings, and it is a particular joy to see it take on new meaning at the heart of this exhibition,” said DIA director Salvador Salort-Pons. “’Georgia O’Keeffe: Architecture’ is a landmark moment — not just for this institution, but for how the world understands one of America’s greatest modern artists. To present the first full accounting of this body of work is an honor, and we believe it will resonate with visitors long after they leave the galleries.”
The show unfolds almost like a cross-country road trip through O'Keeffe's life.
In New York, visitors encounter the artist peering upward. Living in the city from 1918 to 1949, O'Keeffe transformed Manhattan's skyline into bold, modern compositions, capturing the dizzying rise of skyscrapers and the restless energy of a rapidly changing metropolis. From her apartment high above the city at the Shelton Hotel, she painted New York not as a collection of buildings, but as a symbol of modern life itself.
Then the exhibition shifts gears.
The steel and glass of Manhattan give way to rural barns, stables and farmhouses. Whether painting structures in upstate New York, Wisconsin or along the coast of Quebec, O'Keeffe approached these buildings with the same intensity she brought to flowers and mountains. Their angles, silhouettes and textures become unexpectedly monumental under her gaze.
The final stop is New Mexico, where O'Keeffe found perhaps her most enduring architectural muse: adobe.
For nearly four decades, she returned again and again to the walls, courtyards and doorways of places like Taos, Ghost Ranch and Abiquiú. Some of the most intimate works in the exhibition focus on the patio of her Abiquiú home, where shifting sunlight and shadow transformed simple walls into studies of color, geometry and atmosphere.
To help bridge the gap between O'Keeffe's world and our own, the exhibition also includes two immersive digital installations. One recreates the East River view from the windows of her New York apartment as it appears today. Another transports visitors to her New Mexico patio, showing how the space changes with the movement of light throughout the day.
The exhibition is organized by DIA Curator of American Art Ben Colman, whose research draws on O'Keeffe's letters and personal writings. That work reveals an artist whose interest in architecture stretched well beyond her canvas. O'Keeffe maintained friendships and correspondence with influential designers and architects, including Frank Lloyd Wright and Alexander Girard, and followed developments in architecture throughout her life.
One comes away from the show with the feeling of an intimate knowledge of and acquaintance with this artist, merely through photos, quotes and – most importantly – paintings of the architecture she found most fascinating in her century of life in North America.
“The architectural paintings O’Keeffe made across her career are some of her most autobiographical,” said Ben Colman, DIA Curator of American Art, who also curated this exhibition. “These are works where she documented the places that held the most meaning for her as a painter, as a person, in really special ways. She lived in New York City because that was her husband’s hometown (and) that’s where the art world was. She lived there for part of each year, but she also made a point of traveling around the country to different places, where she also found inspiration for her work. It’s really fascinating to me that she made these remarkable pictures that define New York in a moment of incredible change, as the skyscrapers that continue to define the skyline are taking shape around her apartment.”
Colman also shed light on the next major phase of O’Keeffe’s career in New Mexico.
“She had a really expansive vision that took her across the country,” he said. “She found herself in New Mexico, a place she wasn’t from, but started visiting first as a tourist in the 1920s and then moved in 1949, where she lived for the final decades of her life. It’s really rewarding to see New Mexico through her eyes. I also think about the extraordinary process of O’Keeffe as a painter in 1949 – in her early sixties – remaking her work in a brand-new place. She was never content to rest on her laurels, and (was) endlessly experimental and challenging with her work when she found a new place, when she saw a new building.”
For visitors who think they already know Georgia O'Keeffe, the exhibition offers a surprise: an artist who saw poetry in walls, drama in windows and beauty in the geometry of everyday buildings.
“Georgia O’Keeffe: Architecture” runs through Jan. 3, 2027. For more information, visit dia.org.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Beyond flowers: Georgia O'Keeffe's buildings take center stage
