Georgia O'Keeffe

Georgia O’Keeffe took inspiration from the road that passed by her house in Abiquiú, New Mexico, for a group of photographs, drawings, and paintings in the early 1960s. She explained, “The road fascinates me with its ups and downs, and finally its wide sweep as it speeds toward the wall of my hilltop to go past me. I had made two or three snaps of it with a camera. For one of them I turned the camera at a sharp angle to get all the road. It was accidental that I made the road seem to stand up in the air, but it amused me and I began drawing and painting it as a new shape.”

The quasi-abstract, asymmetric composition is two-dimensional, with no indication of spatial recession. The elegant, undulating brown line that signifies the road meanders across the canvas. O’Keeffe’s unusual interpretation of the landscape was also influenced by looking down to the earth from a high vantage point during air travel. The emphasis on balance and unfilled space and the confident line, all reminiscent of sumi-e ink painting, may reflect O’Keeffe’s long-held interest in Japanese and Chinese art.