University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art displaying iconic O’Keeffe painting on loan

IOWA CITY — Through Jan. 25, the University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art has on international loan and display in its galleries an acclaimed early painting by American artist Georgia O’Keeffe — marking a rare opportunity for Midwesterners and a “culturally significant moment” for the region.

“Georgia O’Keeffe’s voice is notably absent from the Stanley Museum of Art collection,” said UI Visiting Senior Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art Diana Tuite, who requested O’Keeffe’s “New York Street with Moon” from the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid in response to its request two years ago to borrow Jackson Pollock’s “Portrait of H.M.” from the University of Iowa.

“With this remarkable loan, we can show how invested she was in representing modernity and urbanity — bound up as these topics are with national identity — and how the city, in turn, sharpened the vision she applied to the rural landscapes for which she is best known,” Tuite said of O’Keeffe’s work.

The O’Keeffe painting — dating back a century to 1925 — was installed the week of Oct. 20 and will remain on display through Jan. 25 in the Stanley galleries next to Roger Brown’s "View From Halfway Up (In Fish-Eye Photorealism)“ — which similarly offers a take on a 20th-century city, but from 50-plus years later in 1978.

Both Brown and O’Keeffe — whose career spanned seven decades before her death in 1986 — studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

“Seen together, these two paintings raise questions about the ways that images of the built environment can underwrite and critique ideologies of American progress,” according to a UI Stanley announcement of the O’Keeffe-Brown display.

“We are enormously grateful to the Carmen Thyssen Collection and the Thyssen-Bornemisza for sharing this incredible painting with the people of Iowa,” UI Stanley Museum of Art Director Lauren Lessing said.

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O’Keeffe’s “New York Street with Moon” is the artist’s first cityscape and her attempt to capture a lived urban experience — as she once said, “One can’t paint New York as it is, but rather as it is felt.”

“We are currently not tracking visitation numbers specifically for the O’Keeffe, but can happily confirm there is frequently a small crowd gathered around it,” Lessing said when asked about visitation numbers to the piece.

The Pollock work that the UI Stanley gave the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza for its current exhibition, “Warhol, Pollock and Other American Spaces” — running through Jan. 26 — was his 1945 “Portrait of H.M.”

“Like all art museums, the Stanley lends and borrows works of art frequently,” Lessing said. “This is part of our mission.”

Since the Stanley reopened in its new location in 2022 after 2008 flooding ravaged the UI campus, Lessing said the Stanley has had a growing number of loan requests.

“Collection-sharing with other museums is central to our mission, and the historical significance of our holdings is recognized across the globe,” she said, citing a UI-based painting by Gabriele Münter that’s currently featured in an exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

The UI Stanley also is preparing to loan a work by Henri Matisse to an exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris in the spring.

“Showing ‘New York Street with Moon’ in Iowa means we can share what may be a surprising work by an incredibly important artist who is not represented at the museum,” Lessing said. “These international exchanges energize audiences, build networks, and generate new research.”

She noted loss or damage to artwork on loan to another museum is “extremely rare,” given their use of professional couriers and specialized art shipping services.

“Not everyone has the opportunity to travel to Madrid to see this painting,” Lessing said. “But now they have an opportunity to see it right here in Iowa City.”

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Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com