NEW YORK – For decades, the painting sat unnoticed beneath coats and cardboard boxes in the closet of a Manhattan apartment.
Almost no one knew the artwork was there until its owner, a woman in her 90s, casually mentioned to her niece one day: “Oh, by the way, there’s a Georgia O’Keeffe in the closet.”
The work, an early painting from the period when O’Keeffe became captivated by the American Southwest, portrays a quintessential New Mexico landscape of rolling, earth-toned hills.
Christie’s has placed its estimated value at $3 million to $5 million. The painting is scheduled to be auctioned Tuesday.
According to the auction house, the 1930 painting was probably the first of a three-work series. The second is held by New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, while the third spent many years in the collection of the Rockefeller family.
Until its rediscovery, the first painting’s location had been largely unknown.
O’Keeffe painting emerges
from a pivotal period
The painting depicts Lobo Peak near Taos, New Mexico. Its significance lies “particularly” in its early date and its depiction of the beginnings of O’Keeffe’s relationship with the American Southwest, said Tylee Abbott, Christie’s director of American Art.
A New York gallery sold the work for $3,800 in 1963 to a woman who later gave it to her daughter.
Before that sale, Abbott said, the painting was known only through a photograph taken in 1931.
O’Keeffe, who died in 1986 at 98, is widely regarded as the “Mother of American modernism.” A trailblazer with a distinctive approach to abstraction, she became especially known for her flower paintings and depictions of the Southwest.
She lived in Abiquiu, New Mexico, where she built a home and studio surrounded by the sweeping desert views that shaped much of her work. The region in northern New Mexico is also ancestral homeland to many Native American communities.
Family believes painting was a graduation gift
The daughter of the woman who bought the painting in 1963 kept it in her New York East Village apartment, Christie’s said. At the family’s request, the auction house has not disclosed their identities.
They did, however, provide Christie’s with details about the painting’s long-hidden history and eventual discovery.
The owner lived into her late 90s and died recently. She never married and was described by relatives as intensely private and exceptionally intelligent. During her career with the U.S. Foreign Service, she spent time in Europe.
She collected antiques and abstract art, though none of the pieces in her collection approached the stature of the O’Keeffe.
The family suspects she received the painting as a graduation present from her mother after completing a master’s degree in the 1960s. She displayed it for years, but in the mid-1980s noticed a guest paying unusually close attention to the work.
Painting bears O’Keeffe’s signature mark
Her niece said the owner placed the painting back in its original shipping crate and stored it at the rear of a closet. The niece, who cared for her during the final years of her life, spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to respect the family’s privacy.
Around 2022, the woman told her niece for the first time that the painting was in the front closet. It remained there until this year, when the family began clearing out the apartment and handling her affairs.
When the painting was finally removed from its crate, its authenticity quickly became apparent.
The work bears the hallmarks of O’Keeffe’s art, including a distinctive signature mark on the reverse: a star with her initials, “OK,” written at its center.
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Seewer reported from Ohio.
