Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986)
Three autograph letters signed ('Georgia' and 'Georgia O'Keeffe'), Abiquiu, New Mexico, 23 June 1948 - 11 June 1959
Two letters to ‘Bob’, 23 June 1948 and 26 June 1952, and one to her sister, Anita Young, 11 June 1959. Seven pages in total, 275 x 213mm. Provenance: Sotheby's, 31 March 1998, lot 323.

‘To be sure I am alone too but I am different – It is alright for me to be alone’: Writing on matters relating to the estate of her late husband, Alfred Stieglitz, and expressing concern over her sister’s solitary existence. O’Keeffe first writes to Bob regarding a possible claim to capital gains from the estate of her late husband, alongside other queries – ‘I think I am only entitled to the interest on his estate since his death’ – concluding the letter ‘Thank you for all this. I feel like a nuisance’. In 1952, she requests Bob’s assistance in handling the affairs of an ‘old friend, a painter, from St Louis’ who was also a friend of Stieglitz and had ‘helped a great deal with what I had to do with the lag ends of Stieglitz affairs’. To her sister, O’Keeffe remarks on some of the practical considerations of acquiring a painting in which she has expressed an interest: ‘I would have to have stretchers made and would have to prepare the canvas on the stretchers – and it would be difficult to ship’. She shows concern for her sister’s solitary existence: ‘I often think of you up there by the ocean alone and I don’t really like the idea. To be sure I am alone too but I am different – It is alright for me to be alone – but I don’t see that I can do anything about your being alone except to hope that you may get to rather like it too…’.

O'Keeffe and Stieglitz married in 1924; after his death in 1946 she spent the remaining 37 years of her life living mostly alone at her cherished home, Ghost Ranch, in New Mexico. Anita was a younger sister of O'Keeffe's and a noted hostess and philanthropist. The two appeared to share a close relationship and corresponded frequently.