Georgia O'Keeffe, Abiquiú: The Desert House, Between Adobe and Eames Chairs

Georgia O'Keeffe bought a house at Ghost Ranch in 1940, then an adobe ruin at Abiquiú in 1945. She settled there for good in 1949, after the death of Alfred Stieglitz. These two houses are her last great work.

The house

At Ghost Ranch, a low U-shaped house open towards the Pedernal, the flat mountain she painted dozens of times. At Abiquiú, an eighteenth-century compound she took four years to restore with Maria Chabot: earthen walls, beamed ceilings, a patio closed off by a black door she would herself paint, wide openings cut into the studio towards the Chama valley. The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum runs the house and organises guided tours, by appointment.

What you see there

Almost nothing, and that is deliberate. Narrow beds, plain tables, a kitchen ordered like a pharmacy. Then, against the adobe, a few modern pieces brought in by her friend Alexander Girard, who settled in Santa Fe in 1953: LCW chairs by Charles and Ray Eames, a Womb chair and a table by Eero Saarinen, an Akari lantern by Noguchi, Arabia ceramics. On the window sills, skulls, vertebrae, smooth stones gathered while walking: her collection, and her models.

The palette

Lime white, raw earth, the grey of bones, the black of the door. The green of a chair, the pink of the cliffs. No pattern: the walls stay bare so the light can work.

What to take home

Three well-chosen objects and a great deal of emptiness. A matt white wall, a dark floor, a plywood seat or an enveloping armchair, and on the sill, whatever you have picked up yourself. LCW and Womb are still in production; in vintage, the first can be found between €1,000 and €2,000 depending on the era, the second several thousand euros new.

Spotted a piece in this spirit? Scan it on Beyit: LCW, Womb or Akari, the app tells you the edition, the vintage, the affordable option and the copy.