At which Chicago museum did Georgia O'Keeffe have her first retrospective exhibition in 1943?

Georgia O'Keeffe had her first retrospective exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1943.

A retrospective surveys an artist’s career rather than presenting only a recent group of works. By 1943, O’Keeffe had already produced abstract drawings, enlarged flower paintings, New York skyscraper images, and New Mexico landscapes. A retrospective therefore offered visitors a way to see the range of her subjects and styles together.

The exhibition took place while O’Keeffe was already a major American modernist, but it also helped museums treat her work as a substantial career rather than a novelty associated with Stieglitz’s gallery. Her reputation continued to grow through later museum exhibitions and retrospectives.

The Art Institute of Chicago is distinct from the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Those institutions also played important roles in American art history, but they were not the site of this 1943 first retrospective.