The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum’s Research Center, Santa Fe, N.M., has received the gift of correspondence between Georgia O’Keeffe and portrait artist Frances O’Brien, as well as interviews and other materials. The correspondence between O’Keeffe and O’Brien explores the women’s lives as artists, mentions business and personal matters, and provides valuable primary source insight into the time period in which they lived.

Frances O’Brien papers, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, gift of Brian and Bina Garfield in honor of Frances O’Brien.
©Georgia O’Keeffe Museum.

The gift is from Brian and Bina Garfield in honor of Brian Garfield’s mother, Frances O’Brien. It comprises correspondence between Frances O’Brien and O’Keeffe between the years of 1946-1973, interviews with Frances O’Brien and images of O’Keeffe and O’Brien from the 1940s to the 1970s.

“The museum is committed to ensuring the preservation of the legacy of Georgia O’Keeffe and to the stewardship of the collections at the museum. The O’Brien collection is a significant and welcomed addition to our archives,” said Georgia O’Keeffe Museum director Rob Kret.
Frances O’Brien (1904-1990) was a close friend of O’Keeffe and an accomplished portrait artist and writer. O’Brien painted portraits of well-known subjects such as Irving Berlin, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, William L. Shirer, Winston S. Churchill, Eleanor Roosevelt and Grandma Moses, primarily for The Saturday Review.

The papers have been processed, and a guide to the collection is available on the museum website at http://contentdm.okeeffemuseum.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/arch_fa/id/226.