Ruth Leon recommends… Georgia O’Keefe – Met Museum

Patricia Marroquin Norby and Matthew Martinez, two Indigenous Native American scholars, discuss

 Georgia O’Keeffe’s painting From the Faraway, Nearby  (1937)

in the light of what, and who, the artist omits in her depiction of New Mexico.

Click here to listen

O’Keeffe’s painting offers a romanticized ideal of the American Southwest that is vast and empty, ignoring local Indigenous communities and claiming the region as her own. At the center of the canvas the skull of a mule deer levitates above an abstracted version of a desert landscape.

During this time, the artist was famous for collecting and painting animal bones, which she had referred to on multiple occasions as boney “trash.” This skull features an additional set of antlers, bringing the animal into the realm of the imaginary. She omits the painting’s middle ground and flattens the picture plane which further elevates the surreal quality of the work.

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