NEW YORK — The painting was buried behind coats and boxes in the closet of a Manhattan apartment for decades.
Few, if any, people knew about the hidden treasure until the nonagenarian woman who lived there casually said to her niece one day, “oh by the way, there’s a Georgia O’Keeffe in the closet.
The painting – an early example of a time when O’Keeffe became enamored with the American Southwest – represents a classic New Mexico Landscape with hills in earthy tones.
Christie’s estimates its value between $3 million and $5 million. It is expected to be auctioned on Tuesday.
The auction house says the 1930 painting was likely the first in a series of three. The second is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The other was for many years in the Rockefeller family collection.
Until now, the whereabouts of the former have been largely a mystery.
O’Keeffe’s painting comes
my key period
The painting of Lobo Peak, near Taos, New Mexico, is “particularly important because of its early date and its depiction of the starting point of O’Keeffe’s era in the American Southwest,” said Tylee Abbott, director of American art at Christie’s.
In 1963, a New York art gallery sold the painting for $3,800 to a woman who gave it to her daughter.
“Before that, it was only known through photographs taken in 1931,” Abbott said.
O’Keeffe, who died in 1986 at the age of 98, is often called the “Mother of American Modernism.” She was a pioneer with her own style of abstract art, best known for her paintings of flowers and southwest landscapes.
She lived in Abiquiu, New Mexico, where she built a house and studio on land with sweeping desert views that inspired the 20th-century painter’s work. Many Native American communities trace their ancestry to the northern New Mexico region.
Family believes painting was a graduation gift
The daughter of the woman who bought the painting in 1963 kept it in her apartment in New York’s East Village, the auction house said. The family asked the auction house not to disclose their identity.
But they did share some details with Christie’s, including how the artwork was found.
The woman who owned the painting lived into her late 90s before recently passing away. Never married, she was extremely private and incredibly intelligent, the family said. At one point in her life, she worked for the U.S. Foreign Service and spent time in Europe.
She collected antiques and abstract art, but nothing comparable to O’Keeffe’s stature.
The family believes she received the painting as a graduation gift from her mother after earning a master’s degree in the 1960s. For many years she displayed it until the mid-1980s when she noticed a guest looking at it a little too closely.
The painting bears O’Keeffe’s signature
She put it back in the original packing crate and put it in the back of a closet, said her niece, who spent the last several years caring for her and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to honor the family’s request for privacy.
Around 2022, the woman first mentioned to her niece that the painting was in the front closet. She stayed there until this year, when they cleaned the apartment and put her things in order.
Once unpacked, it was obvious that the painting was authentic.
It features all the hallmarks of O’Keeffe’s work, including his signature on the back, a star with his initials “OK” scrawled in the middle.
___
Seewer reported from Ohio.
Gn entert
