Georgia O'Keeffe painted New York City in her 1920s series of skyscraper scenes.
O'Keeffe lived in New York with Alfred Stieglitz and painted the city's architecture during the 1920s. Works such as Radiator Building—Night, New York and Shelton with Sunspots, N.Y. transformed skyscrapers, rooftops, and geometric shadows into bold modernist compositions.
The paintings were not straightforward architectural records. O'Keeffe simplified buildings and emphasized vertical forms, light, and color. Her city pictures belong to the same broad modernist career that also included flowers, abstractions, and later New Mexico landscapes.
Because O'Keeffe is so strongly associated with desert scenery, viewers sometimes overlook her New York period. The city was a major subject before she moved permanently to New Mexico in 1949, and its architecture helped establish her reputation in the American art world.