Georgia O’Keeffe, Photographer Audio Exhibition
Georgia O’Keeffe (American, 1887–1986), Garage Vigas and Studio Door, July 1956, gelatin silver print, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Anonymous Gift, 1977, 1977.657.1
11 3/4 × 14 3/4 × 1 3/8 in. (29.8 × 37.5 × 3.5 cm)
Verbal Description
Hello, my name is Emily Holtrop, the museum’s director of learning & interpretation. I will be reading the verbal description of Garage Vigas and Studio Door in Georgia O’Keeffe, Photographer.
Garage Vigas and Studio Door is a gelatin silver print from July 1956. It is by Georgia O’Keeffe, an American artist who lived from 1887 to 1986. It is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The photograph was an Anonymous Gift in 1977. The accession number is 1977.657.1
This black-and-white photograph is landscape-oriented, measuring 11 and three-quarter inches by 14 and three-quarter inches. The image is visually divided into three parts. In the lower, center part of the photo, the artist has captured the glass door of her studio, with reflection, recessed into a light-colored adobe wall. In front of the door is a small courtyard with a light sandy floor. To the right of the door are a small pile of bricks, and several bushes and plants to the left. Above the door is a band of shadow that spans the entirety of the image. Above this darkened recess, five large wooden vigas or round roof beams emerge from the shadowed space and project into the picture. Latillas or ceiling slats, also made of wood, rest on the beams.
Label Text
Hello, my name is Emily Holtrop, the museum’s director of learning & interpretation. I will be reading the label for Garage Vigas and Studio Door in Georgia O’Keeffe, Photographer.
Garage Vigas and Studio Door is a gelatin silver print from July 1956. It is by Georgia O’Keeffe, an American artist who lived from 1887 to 1986. It is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The photograph was an Anonymous Gift in 1977. The accession number is 1977.657.1
The Abiquiú studio door is a subject unique to O’Keeffe’s photography. In this series of photographs, she explored ways to visually compress the subject into two dimensions using the arrangement of forms within the frame. Photographing her studio door from a vantage point inside her garage (which is located across an open courtyard), she positioned her camera to include more or less of the garage ceiling. The linear pattern of vigas (round roof beams) and latillas (ceiling slats) change the way space seems to work in the picture, moving from three-dimensional depth to increasingly flattened planes of form.