Link to Town of Ward, Colorado
Indian Peaks, Ward, Colorado, 2007
Long Lake, Colorado, Georgia O'Keeffe (Aug 21-22, 1917), The Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation, Abiquiu, New Mexico
O'Keeffe vacations and paints in Ward, Colorado
Just after twenty-nine-year-old Georgia O'Keeffe's abstract drawings were first shown at Gallery 291 by Alfred Stieglitz in New York (slightly before she was being "discovered" as a modern American artist by the public) and after a summer of intensive painting in Canyon, Texas where she taught at Texas Normal College, Georgia O'Keeffe traveled by train to Ward, Colorado in August, 1917. With her sister Claudia, she traveled through Denver, then on to Ward over the famous Switzerland Trail of America.
View from the Switzerland Trail railroad outside of Ward
O'Keeffe spent time in a tourist cabin at Stapp's Lakes at the base of the Continental Divide in the Indian Peaks and later at a "cottage" in Ward belonging to Will and Amelia Schmoll (letter Georgia O'Keeffe to Amelia Schmoll, October 1917).
While in the Ward area, she painted watercolors of the mountains, created sketches of cabins in Ward, and painted the Ward Church bell.
Church bell, Ward, Colorado, 1917
Ward is a small Colorado gold-mining town located at the base of the Continental Divide in the Indian Peaks of the Rocky Mountains at a very high altitude (9, 250'). The area is well-known for its alpine wildflowers, glacial lakes and majestic mountain scenery. In 1917, Ward was a tourist destination and situated at the end of the scenic Switzerland Trail Railroad which stopped operating two years later. At that time, Ward was the terminus of the train to what would later become Rocky Mountain National Park.
Upon arriving in Ward, Georgia stayed in a log cabin at Stapp's Lakes Lodge and "seem to walk on an average twenty miles a day" (Alfred Stieglitz letter to Marie Rapp Basalt. Sept 12, 1917. Collection of American Literature. Yale University).
O'Keeffe on porch of cabin at Stapp's Lake outside of Ward, Colorado, 1917
Georgia stayed in the group of mountain cabins with a small group of people. In another letter to Paul Strand, O'Keeffe described the group as: "the engineer, and ex-prize fighter that I've take a great notion to ... a fool and another woman--it was a funny crowd" (O'Keeffe to Strand, Sept 1, 1917).
Georgia O'Keeffe, New, York,1918, Alfred Stieglitz
Georgia O'Keeffe's watercolor mountain landscape series painted at Stapp's Lakes Lodge above Beaver Reservoir near Ward (each more abstract)
While staying in her cabin at Stapp's Lake, O'Keeffe painted a water color view of the divide from above what is now Beaver Reservoir on the Tahosa Road. In Green and Pink Mountains, NO. 1, the jagged Indian Peaks of the Continental Divide and snow still on the mountainsides is clearly visible. (**This is dated 1916 in Highlights from the Collection:Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, 2003). O'Keeffe then painted the series Pink and Green Mountains, each becoming more abstract than the previous.
Pink and Green Mountains, NO. I Pink and Green Mountains, NO. II
Spencer Museum of Art, The University of Kansas Private Collection, Bethesda, Maryland
Pink and Green Mountains, NO. III, Georgia O'Keeffe 1917, Milwaukee Art Museum
Pink and Green Mountains, NO. IV Pink and Green Mountains, NO. V
Private collection, Bethesda, Maryland Private collection, Switzerland
(Lynes, Barbara Buhler. Georgia O'Keeffe: Catalogue raisonne. Vol 1. The Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation, Abiquiu, New Mexico)
Water color paintings of Long Lake, Ward, Colorado, Georgia O'Keeffe 1917
While in Ward, "tramping" through the mountains was one of Okeeffe's main activities. In addition to painting from Stapp's Lake, she also painted water color views of Long Lake near Ward, which is now part of the Brainerd Lake Recreation area.
Long Lake, Colorado (Aug 21-22)
The Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation, Abiquiu, New Mexico
O'Keeffe then moved to a cottage owned by Amerlia Schmoll in Ward and wandered through the town, sketching from a vantage point on the hill above the Ward Church.
Untitled (cabin from hill on Nelson Street above Ward church) Church bell, Ward, Colorado
The Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation, Abiquiu, NM Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation, Abiquiu, NM
O'Keeffe, Alfred Stieglitz, and Paul Strand
During her trip to Colorado, Georgia wrote letters to Paul Strand, the modern photographer she had met earlier in June through Alfred Stieglitz at Gallery 291 in New York. O'Keeffe had gone to New York from Texas when someone had approached her at school in Texas and asked if she was the "Virginia O'Keeffe" whose abstract drawings were being shown by Alfred Stieglitz in New York.
Georgia took the train to New York, confronted Stieglitz for showing her work without her permission, and then spent several days with Stieglitz and photographer Paul Strand in New York before returning to Texas. O'Keeffe had said she painted several abstract portraits of Paul Strand that summer in Texas, and she and Strand corresponded frequently throughout 1917. He sent her several of his "modern" photographs, including his famous close-up of "Bowls" which both excited her and influenced her later close-up paintings of church steeples, crosses, and flowers. (O'Keeffe letters to Paul Strand, 1917, Paul Strand Archive, University of Arizona).
Portrait of Paul Strand, 1917, private collection
In her September 1st letter to Paul Strand, O'Keeffe described a moonlight hike near Ward:
The mountains like silver in the moonlight--The black into the pines and into the valleys seemed impossibly black. . . One Lake . . surrounded by bare mountains--bare banks--rocks--a cold bare lake sparkling in the moonlight--
Gosh it was bare--
And I wanted to like some one tremendously--someone that liked what I saw--like I like it.
Long Lake , Colorado I, watercolor Georgia O'Keeffe 1917
The Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation, Abiquiu, New Mexico
At the time she was in Ward, O'keeffe also corresponded with famed photographer and modern art impresario, Alfred Stieglitz who she had met when he exhibited her abstractions at his Gallery 291 in New York.
Georgia O'Keeffe, photo by Alfred Stieglitz
Untitled, Colorado landscape, Georgia O'Keeffe 1917.
Inscription: Verso: "Aug 22/1/"I want this back"
Private collection, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
I
It is interesting to note that two of Okeeffe's sketches, Untitled-Long Lake and Untitled-Colorado Landscape were on paper from a sketchbook inscribed to her by Alfred Stieglitz at Gallery 291 in June of 1917. He had purchased this sketchbook in Munich several years earlier. Georgia O'Keeffe kept this sketchbook throughout her life and even used it as a portfolio for other sketches, but never used more than a few sheets from it for her own work (Judith Walsh, "Paper Survey" in Georgia O'Keeffe; catalogue raisonne, Vol I, author Barbara Lynes, Yale University Press, 1999).
Georgia O'keeffe's , Church bell, Ward
View of Ward church bell, 2006
While in Ward, O'Keeffe painted an oil of the Ward church bell from the hill above the church. It has been suggested that O'Keeffe frequently became acquainted with a new locale by first painting the local architecture. This painting is unusual in that it departed from her recent abstract style, is quite realistic and includes a great deal of detail in the middle ground (houses, roads, etc.). It also appears to be the only oil completed of her stay in the Ward area.
Church bell, Ward, oil Georgia O'Keeffe1917
The Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation, Abiquiu, NM
In this painting, her up-close focus on only one portion of the church, however, is characteristic of her later paintings of churches and crosses in New Mexico, and pre-sages her close-up paintings of flowers. (See video footage of 90 year-old O'Keeffe below in which she discusses paining only portions of a church). This painting may very well be one of the earliest examples which shows the influence the "modern" close-up photography of Steichen and Strand on her work.
Church Steeple,1930, Georgia O'Keeffe Museum
Later O'Keeffe paintings of church bells and crosses
Black Cross, 1929
Art Institute of Chicago
Private collection, Chicago, Illinois
Video footage of 90-year old O'keeffe
Video - Georgia O'Keeffe Notable New Mexican
Next - O'Keeffe before her trip to Ward
This website is a non-profit educational/historical site. No paid advertising is accepted. I welcome your comments at the email address listed below.
( O'Keeffe paintings photos and/or Stieglitz photos public domain-old-50 and /or PD-pre-1923/PD-USGov; more recent works claimed under fair use doctrine)