Drawn from the Journey (Exhibition)
Library & Archive Exhibition: Drawn from the Journey
Drawn from the Journey features rarely seen drawings from the international travels of Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986) and Dorothy Stewart (1891-1955) held by the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum.
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Drawn from the Journey
Travel drawings and sketches are created as a means of documentation, personal reflection, artistic development, and engagement with new surroundings and communities. The works by O’Keeffe and Stewart, drawn while traveling abroad in the 1930s – 1960s, illustrate experiences, unique insights, and inspirations that only art can fully express; they not only depict the location, people, and objects associated with a place, but also the memories and sentiments connected to the experiences while traveling.
While O’Keeffe and Stewart knew each other, shared some of the same friends, interests, and travel destinations, they were not close and did not travel together. The unique drawings by the two artists offer an opportunity to examine the practice of travel sketching through their varied styles and purposes.
O’Keeffe said, “I love to travel, to see anything…I flew around the world. I was very interested in everything, particularly in drawing what I saw around the world.”[1] Her drawings created while voyaging tend to be simple preliminary sketches in pen or pencil that she might later develop into larger drawings or paintings. She described them as “little drawings that have no meaning for anyone but me,” in which she focused on the shape and form of objects or landscapes. Multiple drawings of rivers and the land from above in different sizes and stages of development serve as examples of this way of working through an idea and experience.
Stewart, who was best known as a printmaker and illustrator in Santa Fe, also loved traveling and began her adventures at an early age when her mother pulled her out of school for a trip around the world because she believed travel was a form of education.[2] Stewart traveled to Europe multiple times during her lifetime and attended art school in France, but, like O’Keeffe, it was Mexico that she had a fondness for. While there are no known works of art representing Mexico by O’Keeffe, Stewart sketched frequently while in Mexico. Hornacinas, Niches and Corners of Mexico City, Stewart’s first book, was published in 1933 and is based on her drawings of hornacinas, alcoves on the exteriors of houses often containing a saint. Stewart’s travel drawings frequently depict architecture and people, using gesture, line, and color to capture a moment and tell a story, as seen in her numerous travel sketchbooks and illustrated letters to friends and family.
The Museum’s library provides an intimate viewing space to study and compare travel drawings from the collection, and consider the artists’ journeys and paths of inspiration, rejuvenation, and curiosity in the world.
[1] Mary Lynn Kotz, “Georgia O’Keeffe at 90,” ARTnews 76, no. 10 (1977): 38.
[2] Margretta Stewart Dietrich, “A Portrait of Dorothy,” in A Book about D.N.S. (pub. by author, 1956).
Exhibition Details
Exhibition: Drawn from the Journey
Location: Michael S. Engl Family Foundation Library and Archive, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum
Dates: January 2026 – January 2027
Curators: Elizabeth Ehrnst
Dorothy Newkirk Stewart 
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