Museum to auction 3 Georgia O’Keeffe paintings

Georgia O'Keeffe

Georgia O’Keeffe, ‘Calla Lilies on Red,’ signed and dated 1928 on the stretcher; titled, dated, signed with the artist’s initials, oil on canvas 32 1/8 by 17 1/8 in. Estimate: $8-$12 million. Sotheby’s image

NEW YORK – Four years following Sotheby’s sale of Georgia O’Keeffe’s iconic flower painting Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1, the auction house will again offer important works by the artist from the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico, to benefit its acquisitions fund.

On 14 Nov., Sotheby’s will present works by O’Keeffe in a Contemporary Art Evening Auction for the first time: A Street from 1926, one of the most psychologically penetrating paintings from the artist’s rare and distinguished series of New York cityscapes (estimate $12-$18 million), and Calla Lilies on Red from 1928, a vibrant depiction of the flower with which O’Keeffe would become synonymous (estimate $8-$12 million). Sotheby’s American Art Auction on Nov. 16 will feature Cottonwood Tree in Spring from 1943, which reveals the profound inspiration O’Keeffe gleaned from the American Southwest (estimate $1.5-$2.5 million).

All three paintings are on public view this week in Sotheby’s Los Angeles galleries (Oct. 16-17) and at SITE131 in Dallas’s Design District (Oct. 19), as part of Sotheby’s tour of highlights from their marquee fall auctions. The full Contemporary Art and American Art sales will open for exhibition in Sotheby’s New York galleries on Nov. 2.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Georgia O’Keeffe, ‘A Street,’ oil on canvas, 48¼ by 30 inches, 1926. Estimate: $12-$18 million. Sotheby’s image

“Museum leadership, with the endorsements of the donors and board of trustees, selected these works to deaccession after very careful and thoughtful consideration,” said Robert A. Kret, director of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. “Removing an artwork from the collection is never an easy thing for any museum to do, but it is an integral part of good collections management to continually build and refine our holdings.”

In May 2014, Sotheby’s sold Georgia O’Keeffe’s iconic flower painting Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 to benefit the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum’s acquisitions fund. The painting achieved a remarkable $44.4 million, setting a world auction record for any work by a female artist that still stands today. Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 now resides in the collection of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, and was the star of the blockbuster retrospective Georgia O’Keeffe at the Tate Modern and Art Gallery of Ontario in 2016–17.