The O'Keeffe in the Closet
By Chadd Scott on
What’s in your coat closet?
How about way in the back?
Any hidden masterpieces of American art?
In the back of a coat closet in an apartment in New York’s East Village sat a box. The box had been there since the 1960s. It was empty until the mid-1980s. Since then, the box has contained its original occupant: Near Abiquiu, New Mexico I (1930) by Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986).
Earlier this year, the elderly owner of the painting invited her niece to the apartment to help go through her belongings and get her affairs in order. The family—which requested anonymity—described the woman as “worldly,” “sophisticated,” “ultra intelligent,” “brave,” strong,” and “independent.”
The woman lived a remarkable life. She graduated from several prestigious academic institutions. She achieved the highest-ever score at the time on the Civil Service Exam. She traveled widely as part of the Foreign Service with a fluency in at least four languages. She was a world-ranked bridge master.
The O’Keeffe painting was a graduation gift when the woman earned her master’s degree in the 1960s. Her mother purchased the artwork for $3,800 on April 15, 1963, at The Downtown Gallery on 51st Street, O’Keeffe’s dealer in Manhattan.
That sounds like quite the bargain today, but $3,800 in 1963 dollars equates to more than $40,000 today. When Christie’s auctions the painting at its 20th Century Evening Sale on November 17, 2026, it will carry a low estimate of $3,000,000.
The public can view the O’Keeffe and all artworks offered during Marquee Week in a free, public exhibition at Christie’s New York at 20 Rockefeller Center through November 17.
Back in the Closet
After receiving the painting as a gift, the woman hung it in her East Village apartment until the mid-1980s. At that point, according to the family, the owner became nervous that a guest was “eyeing it a bit too closely” during a bridge game. She decided to place it back in its original box and store it safely in the closet, where it sat, in its original packing from the gallery, unknown to the rest of her family until revealing its existence to her niece earlier this year.
The niece knew her aunt collected art, but was shocked when she casually mentioned that a Georgia O’Keeffe painting was in her front closet. The niece dug through the closet, where, behind dozens of coats, she found the old wooden box. Inside was the 10-inch x 24-inch Near Abiquiu, New Mexico I, with the artist’s “OK” signature on the original backboard.
The painting only appears in an appendix of O’Keeffe’s catalogue raisonné, and its existence was only known through a photograph of the work taken in 1931. It has never been on public view since its original sale.
The owner passed away shortly after the revelation. Her niece sent photos of the work to Christie’s via email.
“Rediscoveries are rare in the well-established market for academically researched and highly revered historic American artists,” Tylee Abbott, Senior Specialist and International Director of American Art at Christie’s said via press release. “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.”
1931 Photo of Painting in Catalogue Raisonne. Image courtesy Christie’s.
Near Abiquiu
Near Abiquiu, New Mexico I is an important early work by O’Keeffe, and likely the first iteration in a series of three works depicting Lobo Peak in New Mexico, north of Taos Pueblo. The second iteration is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the third is in a private collection and formerly in the collection of David and Peggy Rockefeller. How’s that for good company?
Like the very similar panorama in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Near Abiquiu, New Mexico I was painted the year after Georgia O’Keeffe’s initial visit to the region in 1929, during which she became immediately enthralled with the distinct atmosphere, spiritual character, and seemingly endless vistas of the Southwestern landscape.
O’Keeffe first visited the state with her artist friend Rebecca Strand. They stayed for three months in Taos with famed arts patron Mabel Dodge Luhan. At this time, O’Keeffe was living in New York City. She returned almost every year in the late spring and summer until her husband, photographer and gallerist Alfred Stieglitz, died in 1946. She then moved permanently.
From its expansive skies to its rolling hills, New Mexico quickly became one of the artist’s most iconic subjects, which she frequently explored in her modern abstracted style, emphasizing its curving forms, bright sunlight, and wide spectrum of color.
O’Keeffe was fascinated by this passage of hills, painting them in this series, and extolling this same view in a letter to Stieglitz. Transfixed by the scene, she wrote, “This is the Lobo Mountain...I want to paint this mountain—wanted to every year—but it is quite impossible.”
The painting is a distinctly modern vision of O’Keeffe’s favorite place, which she continued reimagining throughout her life. A precursor to her masterful late career landscapes and abstractions, undulating lines of earth tones and rich impasto dominate Near Abiquiu, New Mexico I.
The painting is an example of O’Keeffe’s interest in New Mexico’s captivating qualities of light and air that allow one to see vast distances clearly when compared to the tight, bustling city of New York from which she came, and where the painting would reside, little known and boxed, for most of its life. Until now.
