This lecture with Dale Kronkright, Head of Conservation at the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum was recorded on May 7, 2020 as part of the Museum's Breakfast with O'Keeffe series.

Beginning in August 2018, the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum began a comprehensive, 18-month-long conservation assessment of O’Keeffe’s historic Home and Studio in Abiquiú, New Mexico. The assessment team consisted of 17 engineers, architects, architectural historians, conservators, and safety and security specialists, as well as ten Museum staff members. To determine the condition and preservation risks of the site and structures, the team combined research from historic documents and photographs with scientific analyses of the soils, hydrology, foundations, walls, ceilings, fixtures, and finishes, and a detailed analysis of the historic environmental history of the site and the current changes in environmental forces triggered by climate change. Combined with a layered understanding of the historic and artistic significance of the Home and Studio, and the many changes O’Keeffe made in the property between 1946 and her death, in 1986, the assessment has resulted in a clear understanding of the challenges the Museum faces in meeting its long-term goal of preserving and sharing, for generations to come, this critical example of O’Keeffe’s creative vision and unique modernist achievement.