A long-lost 1930 landscape by Georgia O’Keeffe, discovered beneath a row of fur coats in a Manhattan apartment closet, is heading to auction at Christie’s with an estimated value of $3 million.
The painting, titled Near Abiquiu, New Mexico I, spent nearly four decades hidden away in its original box at the back of a hallway closet in the East Village in Manhattan. The rediscovery came to light when a woman identified only as Betsy was helping her elderly aunt prepare for hospice care.
Owner Stores Canvas in Apartment Closet for Decades
The painting originally entered the family in 1963. The aunt’s mother purchased it for $3,800 on April 15, 1963, from The Downtown Gallery in Manhattan. The piece was given to the owner as a graduation present. The owner was a former Foreign Service worker whom her family described as worldly, cosmopolitan, and a world-ranked bridge master.
The artwork hung openly in the apartment until the 1980s. The owner grew concerned that a guest was showing too much interest in it. She packed the canvas away into its original box and placed it in the closet, where it remained out of sight for decades.
She mentioned to home health aides in 2022 that she owned a Georgia O’Keeffe, the painting.
It wasn’t physically pulled from beneath the winter coats until weeks before the owner’s death at age 98.
An early Georgia O’Keeffe work discovered in a closet in Manhattan’s East Village in 2022 is bound for the auction block. O’Keeffe’s "Near Abiquiu, New Mexico I," 1930, is estimated to get $3 million at Christie’s November 17 evening sale in New York.https://t.co/yJ2G53I8E3
Authentication and Verification by Experts
Measuring 10 by 24 inches, the oil-on-canvas work depicts Lobo Peak in New Mexico and is considered an important early representation of the artist’s engagement with the high desert landscape. Prior to its rediscovery, the painting was known primarily through a 1931 photograph and an entry in the appendix of O’Keeffe’s catalogue raisonne.
We certainly use just a visual analysis of looking at the painting, looking at the styles, how the brush strokes may match, how other O’Keeffe’s appear that we’ve known that we’ve sold,
Tylee Abbott, head of American Art at Christie’s New York
Abbott noted that the auction house also verified the original 1963 bill of sale from the Downtown Gallery.
This is a wonderful painting, a remarkable story, and extraordinary opportunity for collectors and the general public alike,
Tylee Abbott, senior specialist and International Director of American Art at Christie’s
Christie Displays Newly Found Painting in Public Exhibition
The painting is the first iteration in a series of three works featuring Lobo Peak. The second version belongs to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the third was sold by Christie’s in 2018 for $8.41 million as part of the Peggy and David Rockefeller collection. Her reigning world auction record stands at $44.4 million, set in 2014 when Sotheby’s sold her 1932 painting Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1.
Christie’s will display the newly found painting in a free public exhibition. The event takes place at 20 Rockefeller Center in Manhattan from November 7 through November 17, alongside works including those by Gustav Klimt and Wassily Kandinsky during Marquee Week.
The work will then be offered during the auction house’s 20th Century Evening Sale on November 17, with estimates ranging between $2 million and $3 million. Part of the sale proceeds will be directed to an educational institution, while the rest will help family members cover expenses, including home mortgages.
