Holiday greetings from Georgia O’Keeffe

Georgia O’Keeffe was not religious in the institutional sense, but she was deeply spiritual and certainly enjoyed a good ritual. She usually celebrated Christmas with friends, and sent Christmas cards, including one in 1963 that reproduced her 1917 masterpiece, “Starlight Night” (above). In the 1970s, according to her then caregiver and secretary Agapita Lopez (now Projects Director at the O’Keeffe Museum’s Abiquiu Historic Properties), “Miss O’Keeffe put farolitos along the wall during Christmas, then she would leave a bottle of whiskey for Los Dias — a time when older men would go through the village and “pedir al ano nuevo” [ask for the new year], going to houses to serenade.”

Here’s hoping that your holidays are starry and bright!