The Georgie O’Keeffe Museum
 
Eleven years after the death of the famous American artist, Georgia O’Keeffe, a museum was opened in her honor in the state where she found perhaps her greatest inspiration. The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum was opened in July 1997, and is located at 217 Johnson Street in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Part-time Santa Fe residents, Anne and John Marion founded the private, non-profit Museum in November 1995. Architect Richard Gluckman designed the Museum building. Gluckman’s list of accomplishments includes the gallery addition at the Whitney Museum of American Art’s permanent collection in New York City and the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
 
The Museum, the first of it’s kind dedicated to the work of a woman artist of international fame, is devoted to preserving the artistic legacy of Georgia O’Keefe and to the study and interpretation of American Modernism. Here is located the largest permanent collection of O’Keefe’s work of any in the world

The Museum opened with the largest repository of O’Keefe’s work available to the public by one organization. The collection included more than 140 paintings, watercolors, pastels and sculptures, dating between 1916 and 1980, with subject ranging from O’Keefe’s famous flower and bleach desert skulls to landscapes, nudes, cityscapes, still-lifesand abstracts.

Today, the collection has been gifted major contributions by the Burnett Foundation, the Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation, Anna Marie and Juan Hamilton, Gerald and Kathleen Peters, Anne W. Marion, the Stephane Janssen Trust, Anne W. Phillips, Clare and Eugene Thaw, and Emily Fisher Landau.

In early 2005 an important decision was made by the administration of the museum and the administration of the Georgia O’Keefe Foundation to sign a letter of intent that declared the principles under which the Foundation would transfer all of its assets to the Museum. That letter stated that the Foundation’s vast collection of artwork, including more than 1000 pieces, extensive archival materials, O’Keefe’s house and studio in Abiquiqui, NM would be transferred to the Museum.

By mid-2006 the transaction was complete. This transaction allowed the Museum’s art and archival collections to increase greatly, and designated the Museum as the manager of the artist’s historic house in Abiquiqui. The Museum already owned and maintained her Ghost Ranch property, 20 minutes north of Abiquiqui.

In July 2001, the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Research Center opened its doors to provide stipends to scholars pursuing projects relevant to the study of American Modernism and to the art and life of Georgia O'Keeffe. Areas of study include art and architectural history, literature, music and photography.

O’Keefe was born November 15, 1887 in Wisconsin. From an early age she new she wanted to pursue art. After studying art in cities like Chicago and New York, where she would later teach at Columbia University, she settled in New Mexico in 1947 and lived here until her death in 1986. She is probably best known for captivating the beauty of New Mexico landscapes.