“Oh, by the way, there’s a Georgia O’Keeffe in the closet.”
One can only imagine the pause, double-take, or request for clarity which followed this comment, made by a woman’s elderly aunt in the midst of an effort to clean out her East Village apartment.
Yet as the woman, who revealed herself only as Betsy, rummaged around in that closet 4 years later, she found an oil painting of undulating hills, with soft earthen colors reminiscent of the female form, which is now known to be Near Abiquiu, New Mexico I, painted by the Mother of Modernism in 1930.
Its rediscovery has been hailed as “a once-in-a-lifetime moment, and absolutely thrilling.”
Soon to be auctioned at Christie’s where it’s expected to garner around $3 million, the story of its provenance first broke at the New York Post, who talked to Betsy about the fateful closet-cleaning
Her aunt, she said, was an “extremely intelligent” former foreign service member who had received the painting from Georgia O’Keeffe’s Manhattan art dealer in 1963 as a graduation present from her parents. At the time time it cost $3,800.
Her aunt loved the painting, and hung it in the apartment for years. It ended up in the closet after she noticed that an evening during a bridge game, one of the players kept his eyes fixed on it for far too long.
“I think she was fully aware of its value … she recognized that it was an expression of her financial position,” Betsy told the Post.
She decided to take it down so as to not draw attention to herself during similar soirées. Amid her fur coats the painting sat, even after her niece came over in 2022 to help clean out the apartment as the woman prepared to enter hospice care. It was only after her aunt passed away that Betsy followed up on the comment of the “O’Keeffe in the closet” that she found it, still in its original box marked “The Downtown Gallery, 51st St.”
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“To uncover a seminal work, representative of this 20th Century master’s deep personal engagement with the landscape, a pillar of her career, which is exquisitely rendered and well preserved, is a once-in-a-lifetime moment, and absolutely thrilling,” said Tylee Abbott, Senior Specialist and International Director of American Art at Christie’s, which is preparing to auction the work on November 17th.
The painting is believed to be the first in a set of what was probably 3 depictions of the New Mexico hills which left a deep impression on O’Keeffe when she first traveled there in 1929. The painting is dated 1930, making it “the ground floor” of her inspiration, Abbott told CBS News.
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It was confirmed as authentic by a combination of the box, O’Keeffe’s signature on the back, and also of a photograph dated 1931 taken by O’Keeffe’s husband Alfred Stieglitz.
“Rediscoveries are rare in the well-established market for academically researched and highly revered historic American artists. This is a wonderful painting, a remarkable story, and extraordinary opportunity for collectors and the general public alike,” said Abbott.
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