Untitled (Black Place)

The present work relates to an important series of works Georgia O'Keeffe undertook from 1936 to 1949, dedicated to one of her favorite locations in New Mexico. O'Keeffe wrote of her love of the place, "I must have seen the Black Place first driving past on a trip into the Navajo country and, having seen it, I had to go back to paint—even in the heat of mid-summer. It became one of my favorite places to work...The Black Place is about one hundred and fifty miles from Ghost Ranch and as you come to it over a hill, it looks like a mile of elephants—grey hills all about the same size with almost white sand at their feet.

Her concentrated efforts on the subject during this time resulted in at least six finished canvases, including Black Place I (1944, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California) and Black Place II (1944, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).