A Celebration

Date1924

Maker Georgia O'Keeffe Born Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, 1887; died Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1986

Label TextIn the early 20th century, many Modernist artists developed pictorial strategies for responding emotionally to landscape. O’Keeffe sought formal correspondences for the things in the world that inspired her: “Even if I could put down accurately certain things that I saw and enjoyed, it would not give the observer the kind of feeling the object gave me—I had to create an equivalent for what I felt about what I was looking at—not copy it.” Created in 1924, the year O’Keeffe married the photographer and gallerist Alfred Stieglitz, this work is redolent of a summer sky, where cumulus clouds dance and swirl exuberantly across a vivid blue field.

Even if I could put down accurately certain things that I saw and enjoyed it would not give the observer the kind of feeling the object gave me—I had to create an equivalent for what I felt about what I was looking at—not copy it.

— Georgia O'Keeffe, 1937

Object number94.89

ProvenanceThe artist; Estate of the artist, 1986; The Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation, Abiquiu, New Mexico, 1989-1993; by gift to Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, 1994

Photo CreditPhoto: Scott Leen

Exhibition HistoryNew York, New York, Anderson Galleries, Seven Americans, March 9 - 28, 1925. Checklist no. 113. London, England, The Hayward Gallery, Georgia O’Keeffe: American and Modern, April 8 - June 22, 1993 (Mexico City, Mexico, Palacio de Bellas Artes, July 15 - October 1, 1993; Yokohama, Japan, Yokohama Museum of Art, October 30, 1993 - January 16, 1994). Text by Charles C. Eldredge. Cat. no. 46, pp. 171, 223. Zürich, Switzerland, Kunsthaus Zürich, Georgia O’Keeffe, October 23, 2003 - February 1, 2004. Cat. no. 14, p. 192, reproduced p. 77. Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Modern in America, July 8, 2004 - February 27, 2005. No catalogue. Glens Falls, New York, The Hyde Collection, Modern Nature: Georgia O'Keeffe and Lake George, June 15 - Sept. 15, 2013.* Text by Erin B. Coe, Gwendolyn Owens, and Bruce Robertson. Cat. no. 27, p. 196, reproduced pl. 142. [*exhibition organized by the Hyde Collection and circulated to the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, but A Celebration was lent to Hyde Collection only]. London, England, Tate Modern, Georgia O'Keeffe, July 6 - Oct. 30, 2016.* Text by Tanya Barson, et al. No cat. no., reproduced fig. 69, p. 74 [*exhibition organized by Tate Modern and circulated to Bank Austria Kunstforum Wien and Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, but A Celebration was lent to Tate Modern only]. Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Georgia O'Keeffe: Abstract Variations, March 5 - September 7, 2020. Text by Theresa Papanikolas. No cat. no., reproduced pl. 10, pp. 48-49, 63. Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, American Art: The Stories We Carry, October 20, 2022 - ongoing. Chicago, Illinois, Art Institute of Chicago, Georgia O'Keeffe: "My New Yorks," June 2 - September 2, 2024 (Atlanta, Georgia, High Museum of Art, October 25, 2024 - February 16, 2025.Published ReferencesKalonyme, Louis. “Georgia O’Keeffe: A Woman in Painting,” Creative Art 2, no. 1 (January 1928): p. xxxix, reproduced [as Cloud Forms]. Peters, Sarah Whitaker. Becoming O’Keeffe: The Early Years. New York: Abbeville Press, 1991; pp. 225; 326, n. 79; 334, n. 32 [as location unknown]. “O’Keeffe Painting Displayed in Seattle,” Moscow, Idaho, and Pullman, Washington, Daily News, November 17, 1994. Lynes, Barbara Buhler. Georgia O’Keeffe: Catalogue Raisonné, 2 vols. New Haven and London: Yale University Press for the National Gallery of Art and The Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation, 1999; Vol. 1, no. 452, p. 245, reproduced; Vol. 2, Appendix III, figure 27, p. 1116.

Credit LineGift of The Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation

Dimensions34 7/8 x 18 in. (88.6 x 45.7 cm) Framed: 36 1/4 x 19 3/8 (92.1 x 49.2 cm)

MediumOil on canvas