Georgia O’Keeffe in New Mexico

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In 1929, a young painter named Georgia O’Keeffe spent her first summer in New Mexico. She was captivated by the melding of cultures and the stark landscape. And for the next two decades, O’Keeffe would return to the state nearly every year, moving there full-time in 1949. O’Keeffe’s love affair with New Mexico is the subject of an exhibition, opening this weekend, at the Denver Art Museum. It was curated by Carolyn Kastner of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe. She talks to Ryan Warner.

[Georgia O’Keeffe, Kachina, 1934. Oil on canvas. 22 x 12 in. Private collection. © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum.]

[Georgia O’Keeffe, Blue-Headed Indian Doll, 1935. Watercolor and graphite; 21 x 12-1/8 in. Georgia O’Keeffe Museum; Gift of The Burnett Foundation. © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum.]

[Georgia O’Keeffe, Ranchos Church No. 1, 1929. Oil on canvas; 18-3/4 x 24 in. Collection of the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida; Purchase the R.H. Norton Trust. © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum.]