No one knows exactly where famed textile designer Alexander Girard, who moved to Santa Fe with his wife, Susan, in 1953, first met Georgia O’Keeffe, the area’s most famous resident. Then as now, Santa Fe was a creative hotbed that attracted artists from many disciplines. It’s possible Girard and O’Keeffe crossed paths at the Compound, a well-known retreat for artists and actors in the 1930s and 40s, which he redesigned to great acclaim in 1966.
In any case, the trio formed a friendship that lasted until O’Keeffe’s death in 1986, often sharing meals, spending the night at each other’s homes, and vacationing together in folk art-rich locales like Mexico and Morocco. O’Keeffe and Girard bonded over a shared appreciation for art and culture, culminating in a respect for one another's work that led to many ideas for collaboration. O’Keeffe painted miniature watercolors for Girard’s “Italian Villa in Multiple Visions” tableau—part of Girard's Gesamtkunstwerk comprising both collection and exhibition design at Santa Fe's Museum of International Folk Art.
A notorious rockhound who displayed her favorites around her home in Abiquiú, O’Keeffe is also credited as a contributor for curating rocks to Girard’s exhibition "The Magic of a People," part of HemisFair 1968 at the World's Fair in San Antonio. “I’m very happy to know that you’ll be coming to the opening,” Girard says in one of his many handwritten notes to O’Keeffe. “I think you’ll be pleased with the rocks.”
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In the early 1930s, when Georgia O’Keeffe first saw the four-acre Abiquiú compound that would become her home, she felt an instant connection to it. Though it wasn’t for sale, she persisted, and in 1945 she convinced the Catholic Church, its owner since 1941, to sell it to her. O’Keeffe’s friend Maria Chabot oversaw the renovation of the house, which she described as “a ruin, really. It took six months just to get the pigs out of the house.” With the addition of skylights and large picture windows that invited the outside world into the home, an open plan, and midcentury modern furnishings, the traditional northern New Mexico adobe vernacular became a midcentury-modern masterpiece. It was a canvas of a different kind for her, and “she was as thoughtful and intentional with her home as she was with the artwork she was creating,” says Giustina Renzoni, Director of Historic Properties at Georgia O’Keeffe Museum.
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From the layout of the rooms to the objects and furnishings, the Abiquiú house was an example of holistic design that supported O’Keeffe’s vision for daily life. When designer Isamu Noguchi wasn’t able to visit O’Keeffe as planned, he sent his sister with this Akari lantern, which he designed in 1951—one of many midcentury modern designs in her home. She installed it with a pulley system so she could change the ambience of the room, lowering it when she wanted to create a more intimate feel. O’Keeffe, known for being practical, designed the dining room table herself, using plywood planks for both the tabletop and the hinged legs.
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O’Keeffe continued changing Abiquiú throughout her lifetime, adapting it to suit her needs. “She spent decades curating a style and furniture collection that matched her aesthetic at the time,” says Renzoni. This is the way her studio looked in 1984, when she used it as a sitting (and sometimes napping) room. While the color palette was neutral overall, she embraced the very Girardian notion of pops of color with, for example, the Barwa lounge chair and the Girard-textile pillow resting on a prototype Eames low-height side chair on a wire base.
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Wherever he traveled, Girard invariably found items for his massive folk art collection, which he eventually donated to the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe. Renzoni says O’Keeffe likely bought something, as well, on a trip with the Girards to Oaxaca, Mexico—a green washbasin, which O’Keeffe paired with other items in the zaguan. “When you look at the glaze treatment inside the bowl, it almost looks like antlers, and she has it paired with the elk skull up above,” says Renzoni. “All these little vignettes she’s setting up in her home, it’s very deliberate. There’s an element of design in every aspect of what she’s doing.”
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O’Keeffe and Girard shared varied interests, including travel and an appreciation of the coiled snake motif. O’Keeffe, who lived simply, received many gifts and displayed very few of them. The snake skeleton from a botanist friend not only made the cut, but O’Keeffe later had it permanently embedded into the banco in her living room.
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When her vision became impaired because of macular degeneration, O’Keeffe, who prized her independence, made more changes to her space and life. She had her staff create handwritten cards with oversize phone numbers so she could still call her friends and added a white rug to her studio floor so she could more easily see and avoid tripping over her beloved Chow Chows. And when she could no longer see well enough to paint, she turned to clay sculpture. “She was a strong, independent woman who knew what she wanted,” says Agapita Lopez, who was O’Keeffe’s secretary. “She created her own life the way she wanted it.”
Girard informally worked with O’Keeffe on the interiors and furnishings of her now-iconic Abiquiú home, bringing in midcentury modern designers, including Girard’s great friends and collaborators, Charles and Ray Eames. O’Keeffe appreciated the Eameses’ innovative and sensible designs, which matched O’Keeffe’s own aesthetic sensibilities.
“She had a sustained interest in furniture that was functional and attractive,” says Bonnie Steward, Assistant Librarian at the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. “She was very practical and wanted things that would last.” She owned several Eames designs, including the Eames LCW, and she was pleased when they gave her a prototype of one of their chair designs—so much so that she asked for (and received) a second. Girard also gave O’Keeffe some of his spirited textile designs, which she made into pillows. Both enjoyed experimenting with color, pattern, and texture in their work and in their homes.
“Their friendship was definitely beneficial for both of them personally and artistically,” says Giustina Renzoni, Director of Historic Properties at Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. “They clearly inspired each other.”
Photographer unrecorded. Georgia O’Keeffe with Alexander Girard and Susan Girard at Nacimiento exhibition, 1961. Alexander Girard Collection. AR.00019, Box 30, Folder 4. Bartlett Library and Archives, Museum of International Folk Art, Santa Fe, NM.
Georgia O’Keeffe (R) “rock fishing” with Ray Eames in New Mexico. Photograph by Charles Eames, 1953. © Eames Office, LLC. All rights reserved.
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