Georgia O'KeeffeAmerican, 1887–1986Black Cross, New Mexico
Can I see it?
Yes, on view now
Where is “Black Cross, New Mexico” now? Art Institute of Chicago, Gallery 161, Chicago. Yes, on view now. Checked September 29, 2026.
Chicago, United States
Closed· opens at 11:00 AM
On public display.
- Checked
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the painting
“For me, painting the crosses was a way of painting the country,” recalled Georgia O’Keeffe about the series of compositions featuring Catholic crosses that she created upon visiting the Southwest in 1929. In Black Cross, New Mexico, she contrasted the handmade cross, magnified in scale and isolated flat against the picture plane, with the distant brilliance of the sunset behind the rolling hills. O’Keeffe’s cross paintings helped cement her association with New Mexico, to which she would return every summer until she moved there permanently in 1949. The Art Institute organized her first major museum retrospective in 1943, and purchased this painting at the time.
Art Institute of ChicagoCC BY 4.0
Details
- Accession number
- 1943.95
What it shows
In the catalog
Sources
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Image: Art Institute of Chicago — © the artist or rights holder
In the life of Georgia O'Keeffe
The whole life1927
Retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum held a retrospective of her work.
1928
Stir over the sale of six calla lily paintings for $25,000
Stieglitz announced that six of her calla lily paintings had been sold to an anonymous buyer in France for $25,000; there is no evidence the transaction went as he reported. The publicity worked: from then on her paintings sold for higher prices, and within a decade of her move to New York she was the highest-paid American woman artist.
1928
Stieglitz begins an affair with Dorothy Norman
O’Keeffe and Stieglitz had an open relationship, and his affairs could be painful for her. In 1928 he began a long-term affair with Dorothy Norman, who was also married.
1929
First journey to New Mexico
At the suggestion of Maria Chabot and Mabel Dodge Luhan she travelled by train with her friend, the painter Rebecca (Beck) Strand, wife of Paul Strand: in Taos Luhan took them in and gave them studios. From then on O’Keeffe visited New Mexico almost every year, often for months, returning each winter to New York to exhibit at Stieglitz’s gallery.
1929–1983 · Workplace
New Mexico
December 1931
Meets Frida Kahlo
At the opening of Diego Rivera’s solo exhibition at MoMA, Frida Kahlo met O’Keeffe and a friendship developed. They stayed in touch while O’Keeffe recovered from a nervous breakdown in hospital and then in Bermuda, and in the 1950s they visited each other’s homes on a couple of occasions.
