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Cincinnati Art Museum acquires Georgia O’Keeffe My Back Yard painting

The Cincinnati Art Museum has acquires Georgia O’Keeffe painting My Back Yard. The 18- by 24-inch painting is a prime example of O’Keeffe’s celebrated depictions of Southwest landscapes. Rugged cliffs and mesas are depicted in bold forms and earthy red and yellow colors.

Georgia O’Keeffe, My Back Yard, 1943. Oil on canvas. Cincinnati Art Museum; Museum Purchase: The Edwin and Virginia Irwin Memorial, Fanny Bryce Lehmer Endowment, Bequest of Mr. and Mrs. Walter J. Wichgar, John J. Emery Endowment, Mr. and Mrs. Harry S. Leyman Endowment, and Rieveschl Collection Fund.© Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation / Artist Rights Society (ARS), NY
Georgia O’Keeffe, My Back Yard, 1943. Oil on canvas. Cincinnati Art Museum; Museum Purchase: The Edwin and Virginia Irwin Memorial, Fanny Bryce Lehmer Endowment, Bequest of Mr. and Mrs. Walter J. Wichgar, John J. Emery Endowment, Mr. and Mrs. Harry S. Leyman Endowment, and Rieveschl Collection Fund.© Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation / Artist Rights Society (ARS), NY

The museum paid more than $1.8 million for the painting. The winning bid took place by telephone with Christie’s Auction House in New York on Thursday morning.

O’Keeffe (1887-1946) painted “My Back Yard” in 1943, about six years after moving to New Mexico. The subject is the view from her Ghost Ranch home in Abiquiu.

The museum is expected to display the painting in three to four months, said Julie Aronson, the Art Museum’s Curator of American Painting, Sculpture and Drawings.