Beinecke acquisitions offer insights into public and private life of Georgia O’Keeffe Recent acquisitions by the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library shed light on the life and work of artist Georgia O’Keeffe and her husband, photographer Alfred Stieglitz. The collections document O’Keeffe’s public face and the business of showing and selling her art, and also her private friendships, casual observations, and unguarded moments. Several of the acquisitions include not only letters and manuscripts, but also photographs of O’Keeffe and her friends and family. These photographs depict her residences at Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch as well as many other settings (a beauty parlor, while hiking, shopping, driving, and boating). The artist’s legacy was managed and promoted for two decades by the Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation, whose records document the distribution of O’Keeffe’s assets and the perpetuation of her artistic legacy. The new additions complement Beinecke’s holdings relating to O’Keeffe and to other American artists. Beinecke continuously adds to its exciting collection, which consists not only of vast and comprehensive collections relating to O’Keeffe and Stieglitz, but also numerous small collections and individual letters, manuscripts, photographs, works of art, and books. The lives and work of American artists and arts communities are well documented in Beinecke’s Yale Collection of American Literature, especially at points of intersection between literature and the visual arts. Activities around Alfred Stieglitz’s important photography and art galleries, 291 and An American Place, and his influential publication Camera Work, as well as conversations and exchanges among artists and writers in the Southwest are documented in the Alfred Stieglitz/Georgia O’Keeffe Archive; the archive includes work, correspondence, and writings by artists Anne Brigman, Marsden Hartley, Paul Strand, Edward Steichen, and others.

The recent O’Keeffe acquisitions include:

Georgia O’Keeffe letters to the Girard family, 1957-1983 (YCAL MSS 209)

Georgia O’Keeffe letters to Alan Priest, 1950-1961 (YCAL MSS 271)

Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation records, 1950-2006 (YCAL MSS 342)

Georgia O’Keeffe letters to Betty Pilkington, 1952-1976 (YCAL MSS 344)

Georgia O’Keeffe letters to Edith Evans Asbury, 1957-1986 (YCAL MSS 363)

Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz letters to Erma Stix (uncataloged)

Related collections at the Beinecke include: Alfred Stieglitz / Georgia O’Keeffe archive, 1728-1986 (YCAL MSS 85)

Flora Stieglitz Straus collection of Stieglitz family papers, 1860-1999 (YCAL MSS 89)

Alfred Stieglitz / Georgia O’Keeffe collection, 1893-ongoing (YCAL MSS 104)

O’Keeffe at Abiquiu (YCAL MSS 263)

Angna Enters and Louis Kalonyme papers, 1919-1960 (YCAL MSS 430)

These collections are available for research. Researchers may contact the Beinecke Library Reference Staff for further information. Selections from Beinecke’s collections are included in the recent publication of letters by O’Keeffe and Stieglitz, available from Yale University Press. The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library is open for research year-round and visitors can plan their research or read about fellowship opportunities online. (LC) Ansel Adams, [Photograph of Georgia O’Keeffe, seated, writing a letter, in Yosemite, California], 1938 Sept 11, Alfred Stieglitz / Georgia O’Keeffe Archive (YCAL MSS 85).

Beinecke Top Tens gather (approximately) ten related items to give an at-a-glance look at some of the Library’s interesting, important, strange, compelling, beautiful holdings. To see more lists, click here: Beinecke Top Tens. To suggest a list subject, contact us: Top Ten Ideas.