Collection: Georgia O'Keeffe: Architecture

Detroit Institute of Arts

September 11, 2026 - January 3, 2027

Georgia O'Keeffe: Architecture is a groundbreaking exhibition that showcases approximately 35 architectural paintings created from the 1920s –1960s. O'Keeffe, a pioneer of modern art, celebrated the beauty and complexity of the built environments she inhabited through these remarkable works. Throughout her long career, the artist found inspiration through close observations of her surroundings, both natural and manmade. She returned many times to architectural subjects with the same powerful, abstract style used for her well-known depictions of flowers and desert landscapes. 

O’Keeffe experimented with line, geometry, and color to develop her distinctive style. She painted the gleaming towers of new Manhattan skyscrapers, the broad sides of rural barns, and striking adobe homes of New Mexico. The buildings in the artist’s work, rich with personal meaning, encourage us to view our architectural surroundings with new eyes.