Which 1970 museum retrospective made Georgia O’Keeffe the first living female artist honored by that institution?

The Whitney Museum of American Art presented the 1970 retrospective that made Georgia O’Keeffe its first living female artist honored in that way.

The Whitney mounted Georgia O’Keeffe in 1970, giving a major survey to an artist whose career already spanned more than five decades. The exhibition helped reinforce her position as a central figure in American modernism and brought together paintings from different phases, including abstractions, flowers, landscapes, and New Mexico subjects.

O’Keeffe was not the first woman to receive serious museum attention in the United States, and other institutions had shown her work earlier. The significance of this milestone is specific to the Whitney’s history: she was the first living female artist to receive a retrospective there.

The event also reflected changing ideas about American art. By 1970, O’Keeffe’s work was being reassessed beyond the flower imagery that had often dominated popular discussion of her career.