Seth Kaller, Inc.

While visiting Georgia O’Keeffe at Ghost Ranch in July 1969, fellow artist Mym Tuma was surprised when O’Keeffe asked her if she wanted her folding safari chair that she used for painting in the desert.

“Do you want it? You may have it. I’ve been meaning to have a cover made for it. The arms are shredded.”—Georgia O’Keeffe quoted in Mym Tuma diary entry, July 1969

[GEORGIA O’KEEFFE]. Folding Safari Chair. Given to artist Marilynn Thuma (aka Mym Tuma), in July 1969. 22 x 22 x 37¾ in.

Inventory #26261.01       Price: $15,000

Ghost Ranch was the location of one of two homes O’Keeffe maintained in northern New Mexico. O’Keeffe had a summer house on twelve acres approximately twelve miles from Abiquiú at the edge of the 21,000-acre Ghost Ranch, then operated as a dude ranch. She also kept a larger home in Abiquiú with a well-watered garden that was more comfortable for winter lodging. She bought it from the Catholic Church as a ruin in 1945 and supervised its restoration. She made it her permanent home in 1949.

After reading an article on O’Keeffe and her art, Marilynn Thuma (Mym Tuma), fresh out of the Stanford University graduate painting program, boldly sent O’Keeffe a brief letter asking to visit her in New Mexico. Over the next eight years, they shared several visits and a rich correspondence showing mutual interest and support.

In July 1969, while Tuma was visiting O’Keefe at her summer home on the edge of Ghost Ranch, O’Keeffe offered her the folding safari chair (or “bunch of sticks”) that she had used for painting in the desert.

The chair is very similar in design to those of Klint (1888-1954), the architect who became known as the father of modern Danish furniture design. Klint designed his first piece of furniture in 1914. His 1933 safari chair was inspired by the English officer’s chair he had seen in a travel guide from Africa. It was one of the first do-it-yourself high-design pieces: it could be easily assembled and disassembled without tools, making it an ideal lightweight, portable armchair for people on the move.

Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986) was born in Wisconsin and after graduating high school in 1905 studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Students League in New York. In 1908, unable to fund further education, she worked for two years as a commercial illustrator and then taught in Virginia, Texas, and South Carolina between 1911 and 1918. While teaching art in West Texas, she experimented with abstraction through a series of charcoal drawings. Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946), a New York art dealer and photographer, first exhibited her work in 1917. She soon moved to New York at his invitation, which led to his divorce and their marriage in 1924. By the mid-1920s, O’Keeffe was already recognized as an important American artist for her paintings of New York skyscrapers and depictions of flowers. As an artist, she helped establish the American modernism movement and became known as the “Mother of American Modernism.” In the summer of 1929, she made her first trip to northern New Mexico and returned for most summers over the next two decades. After Stieglitz’s death, she lived permanently in New Mexico in Abiquiú, until the last years of her life when she lived in Santa Fe. In the 1950s, O’Keeffe began to travel internationally and painted mountains in Peru and Japan. In 1960, she began exploring a new subject, aerial views of clouds and sky. Because of failing vision, she painted her last unassisted work in 1972. She continued to create art with the help of assistants until near her death. After her death, the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum was established in Santa Fe.

Marilynn Thuma / Mym Tuma (b. 1940) was born in Illinois and studied at Northwestern University, Stanford University, and New York University. She experimented with three-dimensional works in a studio she established in Mexico. She first met Georgia O’Keeffe in 1964, and the two artists discovered common interests. O’Keeffe served as a mentor, and they kept up a correspondence for nearly a decade. In 1974, Tuma toured New South Wales and Western Australia, painting and sketching, before returning to the United States and establishing a studio on the eastern end of Long Island, New York. Tuma has created abstract works on paper and emphasizes organic forms, including oceanic and coastal forms. She also specialized in sculptured paintings.

Her website devoted to these letters and her relationship with O’Keeffe (okeeffeandme.com), explains the different name she used early in her career. “The reader will note. that at that time in my career, I used the name Marilynn Thuma. Originally misspelled by a Germanic “th,” as Thuma, my surname Tuma is a Czech name meaning “monument” or, “that which endures.” My will-to-form monuments to Nature and organic growth has been my life’s ambition. [Latin v. tumere, an artificial mound. i.e.. an ancient burial mound.]”

Condition: Made of varnished oak and tan canvas; refurbished; minor soiling and fading to fabric; includes frayed original arm straps and seat.

Provenance: Georgia O’Keeffe; to artist Marilyn Thuma (a.k.a. Mym Tuma).