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Black Cross, New Mexico

Painting of close-up cross, mountain, red, yellow sky backdrop.
© The Art Institute of Chicago

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  • Painting of close-up cross, mountain, red, yellow sky backdrop.

Date:

1929

Artist:

Georgia O’Keeffe (American, 1887–1986)

About this artwork

“For me, painting the crosses was a way of painting the country,” recalled Georgia O’Keeffe about the series of compositions featuring Catholic crosses that she created upon visiting the Southwest in 1929. In Black Cross, New Mexico, she contrasted the handmade cross, magnified in scale and isolated flat against the picture plane, with the distant brilliance of the sunset behind the rolling hills. O’Keeffe’s cross paintings helped cement her association with New Mexico, to which she would return every summer until she moved there permanently in 1949. The Art Institute organized her first major museum retrospective in 1943, and purchased this painting at the time.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Arts of the Americas

Artist

Georgia O'Keeffe

Title

Black Cross, New Mexico

Place

New Mexico (Place depicted)

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.

Made 1929

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

99.1 × 76.2 cm (39 × 30 in.)

Credit Line

Art Institute Purchase Fund

Reference Number

1943.95

Copyright

© The Art Institute of Chicago

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.

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