Lost Georgia O'Keeffe Painting Found in Closet to Be Auctioned at Christie's

When Christie’s holds its 20th Century Evening Sale in two weeks, a long-lost Georgia O’Keeffe painting titled Near Abiquiu, New Mexico I (1930) will hit the auction block with an estimated value of $2 million to $3 million, ARTnews reported. The abstract landscape, which has spent nearly 40 years hidden away from public view, was recently discovered underneath a row of fur coats in an East Village apartment closet by a Rhode Island woman helping her elderly aunt clear out the space.

For Betsy, the 65-year-old niece who made the discovery, the find quickly eclipsed her own real estate realities. “I thought, wow, that’s that’s pretty wild,” she told the New York Post, noting that once she began exploring the piece’s market value, she realized it was worth more than her house.

From a 1963 Graduation Gift to an East Village Closet

The painting’s journey to a high-profile auction house began decades ago. According to the New York Post, Betsy’s aunt—described as a worldly, ultra-intelligent former Foreign Services worker—received the artwork as a graduation gift from her mother. The mother purchased the canvas for $3,800 on April 15, 1963, at The Downtown Gallery on 51st Street, which served as O’Keeffe’s dealer in Manhattan at the time.

The piece hung openly in the apartment for years until the 1980s. That changed abruptly when the owner noticed a visitor “eyeing it a bit too closely.” Valuing her privacy and recognizing the canvas as a tangible indicator of her financial standing, the aunt took the painting off the wall, placed it in its original box, and tucked it into the hallway closet. It remained there untouched, protected by a stack of fur coats, as its existence faded into art-world obscurity—known only through a single photograph taken in 1931.

The first inkling of the hidden treasure surfaced in 2022. As the aunt and niece prepared the apartment for home health aides, the elderly owner casually remarked that there happened to be a Georgia O’Keeffe in the hall closet. Yet, the physical recovery had to wait. It wasn’t until a few weeks ago, while moving her aunt into hospice care at age 98, that Betsy finally pulled the box out from the back of the closet. Her aunt has since passed away.

Long-lost $3M Georgia O'Keeffe painting buried in NYC apartment closet for 40 years hits auction block https://t.co/8EyNETLNuE pic.twitter.com/AQVV5XyBA2

— https://x.com/nypmetro/status/2118313174382289327

An Important Early Work Heads to Rockefeller Center

The canvas measures 10 by 24 inches and features O’Keeffe’s signature in a star-shaped design, alongside scrawling on the box attributed by Betsy to the artist’s husband, renowned American photographer Alfred Stieglitz. In a lot essay cited by ARTnews, Christie’s describes the piece as an important early work that likely serves as the first iteration in a series of three paintings depicting Lobo Peak, north of Taos Pueblo. Of the other two works in the series, one resides in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, while the other is held in an unnamed private collection.

Before it goes to auction on November 17, the public will have a chance to examine the piece. Art lovers can view the painting during a free exhibition running from November 7 through November 17 at 20 Rockefeller Center, according to the New York Post.

As for the windfall, the family has mapped out immediate plans. A portion of the auction proceeds will be donated to an unnamed educational institution, while the rest will help Betsy and her family pay off their mortgage. The painting even enjoyed a brief, lighthearted tour of domestic duty before heading to Christie’s. “For chuckles, I hung it up on the wall of my house for an afternoon, just to say I had a Georgia O’Keeffe in my house,” Betsy said.