Georgia O'Keeffe 1887-1986

An American Place, New York
International Business Machines, New York, 1940
Grand Central Art Galleries, New York (sold: Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, January 25, 1956, lot 54)
The Downtown Gallery, New York, 1956 (acquired at the above sale)
Leo S. Guthman, Chicago, Illinois, 1957
Gift to the present owner (his daughter), circa 1990s

New York, An American Place, Georgia O'Keeffe: Exhibition of Oils and Pastels, February-March 1940, no. 21 (as Sunset-Long Island, N.Y.)
New York, The World's Fair, International Business Machines Gallery of Science and Art, Contemporary Art of the United States: Collection of the International Business Machines, May 1940
New York, Grand Central Art Galleries, 60 Americans since 1800, November-December 1946, no. 40
Tulsa, Oklahoma, The Philbrook Museum of Art, Georgia O'Keeffe Retrospective Exhibition, October-November 1952
Dallas, Texas, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts; Delray Beach, Florida, The Mayo Hill Galleries, An Exhibition of Paintings by Georgia O'Keeffe, February-April 1953, no. 2
Southampton, New York, Parrish Art Museum, The Long Island Landscape, June-August 1982

Inspired by her surroundings, which ranged from New York City to the New Mexico hills, O’Keeffe was interested in the rhythm and forms of nature and in her works created a delicate symbiosis between realistic observation and abstraction.  Sarah Greenough writes “O’Keeffe’s imagery is concrete, but the consequence of her concise recounting shocks us to a new awareness.  We quickly see her entering the vividly colored sky, becoming one with its greater forces.  She does not write of the dust of the trail, the rocks on the road, the length or toil of the walk, but of an effortless transcendent event…She has no aerial perspective, but treats every thing in focus, ignoring impressionistic values, the actual envelope of air, or the limits of human, (or even mechanical) vision.  O’Keeffe gives us a new world made sharp in all of its large and small parts.  The strong ordering, a result of her clear optical and mental vision, can intimidate as well as inspire and challenge” (Jack Cowart and Juan Hamilton, Georgia O’Keeffe: Art and Letters, Washington, D.C., 1987, pp. 2-3).  Sunset-Long Island, of 1939, is a striking example of O’Keeffe’s modernist vernacular and her ability to distill natural forms into abstracted elements.   As Charles C. Eldredge writes, there is a “dichotomy in O’Keeffe’s vision between the geometric and the organic… [and her] works incorporated both rhythmically rounded forms and crisp angular shapes, which were sometimes combined in a single image” (Georgia O’Keeffe: American and Modern, Ft. Worth, Texas, 1993, p.161).   In the present work, a glowing sun is set against a stark white background and floats above two darker undulating planes below.     The bold, visible textures created by the application of pigment create a secondary visual intrigue and the effects of light against the painted surface mimic those of the sun on the sea.  Sunset-Long Island was recognized as a significant example of O’Keeffe’s work and was selected to represent New York State at the exhibition of the New York World’s Fair in 1939.