Skip to Content
Today Open today 10–11 members | 11–5 public

The Shelton with Sunspots, N.Y.

Painting of a dark gray skyscraper in the glaring sun. The bright sun reflects off of the tall, looming building, which is painted from the perspective of a passerby looking up at the building. The light blurs out the top of the building, and dots of yellow light appear lower down and on nearby buildings.
© Georgia O'Keeffe Museum/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Image actions

  • Painting of a dark gray skyscraper in the glaring sun. The bright sun reflects off of the tall, looming building, which is painted from the perspective of a passerby looking up at the building. The light blurs out the top of the building, and dots of yellow light appear lower down and on nearby buildings.

Date:

1926

Artist:

Georgia O’Keeffe (American, 1887–1986)

About this artwork

“I went out one morning to look at [the Shelton Hotel] and there was the optical illusion of a bite out of one side of the tower made by the sun, with sunspots against the building and against the sky,” said Georgia O’Keeffe, recalling the precise moment that inspired her to paint The Shelton with Sunspots. Although her depictions of flowers and the southwestern landscape are powerful and evocative, O’Keeffe painted a group of cityscapes in the 1920s that are no less intriguing. She married the photographer and dealer Alfred Stieglitz in 1924, and the following year they moved into the Shelton, a recently completed skyscraper. O’Keeffe was fascinated by the soaring height of the building and emphasized its majesty in this painting by rendering it from the street below. In the glaring light of the emerging sun, the building becomes an abstracted series of rectangles arranged in the center of the composition. Yet the hard edges of the Shelton are softened by the numerous circular sunspots and wavy, flowing lines of smoke and steam, suggesting that despite her urban subject matter, O’Keeffe nevertheless sought to unify man-made and organic forms, just as she would in her southwestern paintings such as Black Cross, New Mexico .

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Arts of the Americas

Artist

Georgia O'Keeffe

Title

The Shelton with Sunspots, N.Y.

Place

United States (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1926

Medium

Oil on canvas

Inscriptions

Signed, titled, and dated on label on reverse

Dimensions

122.6 × 76.9 cm (48 1/4 × 30 1/4 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Leigh B. Block

Reference Number

1985.206

Copyright

© Georgia O'Keeffe Museum/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

Share

Sign up for our enewsletter to receive updates.

Learn more

Image actions

Share