The museum marks this painting In Copyright. No open image licence has been established for this study.
A study against the weather record
Georgia O’Keeffe
Black Mesa Landscape, New Mexico / Out Back of Marie’s II
O’Keeffe turned the landscape behind Marie Garland’s ranch into an abstract composition. What can the records establish about the summer behind this picture—and where does the weather evidence end?
Painted day unknownDepicted weather unknown
The Nephos method
How this study was read
The method in fullWhat is written
The museum catalogue links this canvas to landscapes begun during visits to Marie Garland’s ranch near Alcalde in 1930. The Library of Congress dates the summer trip to June–29 August. The comparison starts on 1 June by convention; neither a painting day nor continuous residence at the ranch is documented.
1930, June-Aug. 29
Library of Congress, Georgia O’Keeffe timelineJune: returns to New Mexico by train
Georgia O’Keeffe Museum catalogue raisonné chronology, 1930 entry
Records of those days
- Weather Bureau, New Mexico Section, June–August 1930Separate published monthly precipitation totals for Nambé and Santa Fe, manually read from the original scans. The August calendar month extends two days beyond the visit window.
- NOAA GHCN-Daily, Santa Fe, USC00298072A complete daily precipitation sequence for 1 June–29 August. Trace, presumed-zero and quality flags are handled separately. July’s nonblank printed daily cells were checked against the digital file.
- Museum object record and exhibition scholarshipThe labels identify Black Mesa; the museum describes an abstraction retaining the land’s contours and colours. No verified storm description or dated execution record was found.
Not found or not yet searched
- The month-only June start is not an arrival date. Travel elsewhere falls within the visit envelope.
- The museum’s short timeline says late April for the return to New Mexico; its fuller catalogue chronology and the Library of Congress say June.
- No verified ranch gauge, exact easel location or weather observation tied to this painting is established.
- Española has no daily entries in the selected window. Alcalde and Chamita station series start later. Nambé’s presumed-zero entries cannot establish dry days.
Each claim tested
- What changed in rainfall during the documented summer? Both selected gauges recorded much more rain in July than in June. Their August totals differ sharply. These are separate station records, not an average or a reconstruction of weather at the ranch.
- Does the rainfall identify a storm in the painting? Unknown. The verified museum account concerns landforms and abstraction, not a specified storm. No painting day permits an event comparison.
- What did O’Keeffe change? The museum describes a transformation of the land’s contours and colours into an abstract surface composition. The weather records cannot measure that artistic change or explain the painted light.
Verdict
The picture is tied to the Alcalde landscape and the summer of 1930. Rainfall changed over that summer and differed between nearby places. The weather of the depicted scene remains unknown.
- UnknownA specific painted day The documents date the year and the trip, not work on this canvas within the trip.
- UnknownWeather depicted above Black Mesa No verified source identifies a particular storm; neither gauge measures the sky or rainfall at the ranch.
What this cannot tell you. Whole-month totals are not prorated to the visit window. Different station observation-day conventions remain separate. Catalogue coordinates give approximate distances from Alcalde, not verified 1930 instrument-to-easel distances. Printed monthly totals and the rounded daily millimetre file are distinct numerical products. This study makes no climate ranking and no claim about an unusual summer. The artwork is marked In Copyright. The reproduced document is a public-domain Weather Bureau page, not the painting.
Step 1 · The picture and its making
A named place, transformed into painting
The title leads back to Marie Garland’s H & M Ranch near Alcalde. The museum’s catalogue chronology connects O’Keeffe’s visits there in 1930 with a group of landscape paintings that includes this canvas, catalogue number 730. Its backing labels preserve an earlier identification with Taos, which O’Keeffe crossed out and replaced with Black Mesa. Her later notebook title identifies the view with the land behind Marie’s.
The museum describes blue peaks behind darker ground, with green trees and foliage along the lower edge. Its exhibition account uses this painting to explain how O’Keeffe retained the land’s contours and vivid colours while turning them into an abstract arrangement on the canvas surface. That is the documented transformation. No verified source used here identifies the dark forms as storm clouds or ties the light to a particular storm.
“abstract compositions that hover on the surface of the canvas”
Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Modernism Made in New Mexico
Step 1 · The date window
A summer visit is not a painted day
The catalogue dates the work to 1930 and records a graphite 30 on its backing, without assigning that numeral to a named hand. The Library of Congress timeline dates the summer visit to June–29 August and records repeated stays at the ranch, alongside travel elsewhere. The museum’s short timeline says late April for the return to New Mexico, while its fuller catalogue chronology and the Library of Congress place it in June.
The daily comparison uses 1 June–29 August 1930, 90 days inclusive. The first of June is a convention for a month-only start; it is not an arrival date. This window describes the trip, not continuous residence at Alcalde or a documented period of work on this canvas. The monthly table shows June, July and the whole of August; August extends two days beyond the visit window.
“1930, June-Aug. 29”
Library of Congress timeline, summer visit entry
“June: returns to New Mexico by train”
Museum catalogue raisonné chronology, 1930
Step 2 · The weather records
A wetter July, with rain varying by place
The Weather Bureau’s printed registers give monthly rainfall at Nambé, about 22 km from Alcalde, and Santa Fe, about 47 km away. These distances use catalogue coordinates and a settlement reference point; the exact ranch and historical gauge positions are not established. The two stations are shown separately. July brought much more rain than June at both, but their August totals differed sharply. This compares these three months; it is not a claim about how unusual the summer was.
Read the monthly values
| Month | Nambé | Santa Fe |
|---|---|---|
| June 1930 | 0.59 | 0.37 |
| July 1930 | 3.82 | 4.32 |
| August 1930 | 0.25 | 1.99 |
Santa Fe also has a complete daily sequence for the 90-day window: 169.6 mm, with measurable rain on 35 days and traces on another 22. A trace is recorded precipitation too small for the printed gauge increment. The daily file stores millimetres rounded for each day, so its sum need not exactly equal a conversion of the printed monthly totals. The register identifies Santa Fe’s day as midnight to midnight; most other stations reported a period ending near sunset.
The Weather Bureau warned that the showers were local. Its statement about daily July showers refers to somewhere in New Mexico each day, not daily rain at Alcalde.
“The showers of the month were exceedingly local in character, and nearby stations differed much in the amounts received.”
U.S. Weather Bureau, New Mexico, June 1930
“The showers of the month were local in character, but were persistent, occurring daily at some point within the State.”
U.S. Weather Bureau, New Mexico, July 1930
Open the July Weather Bureau page
Steps 3 & 4 · Test and finding
The records cannot identify the sky
The documents support a connection between this painting, the Alcalde landscape and the summer of 1930. The gauges add a sequence of changing rainfall during that summer. They do not test a specific storm, date the picture, or explain its colour and light. The museum’s account of abstraction is supported by its art-historical reading; rainfall cannot independently prove or disprove it.
Española is nearer, but its downloaded daily file has no observations for this window. The Alcalde and Chamita series begin after 1930. Nambé’s daily file contains many entries marked missing and presumed zero; those entries are not counted as observed dry days. The published monthly totals survive, so the study can retain Nambé at that level without inventing its daily weather.
Finding: a documented landscape transformed into an abstract composition, made in the year of a summer with substantial July rainfall at both selected gauges. The weather of the scene remains unknown. A letter or dated working record tied to this canvas would narrow the question; even then, rainfall away from the ranch would not establish the sky above it.
Sources
Every source on this page
Each file was downloaded and given a fingerprint (its sha256). The page is rebuilt from these files and will not build if a fingerprint changes, so every number above comes from them rather than being typed in.
- Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, object record, CR 730 / 1997.6.15
sha256 3c64daecda55cf9efb85ef179b2fa976a295afb7be6762f5987e6461a01aac74 - Museum catalogue raisonné chronology, adapted from Lynes (1999)
sha256 4f99d3cca1042c06f350012899f720a26b07622582228b897e9e2f2a4c5c683e - Museum short timeline: conflicting arrival month
sha256 2efa67bc5486731e1a599e76ce7d48f3e7c34326ef218006a482d8d8c622e936 - Library of Congress, Georgia O’Keeffe timeline
sha256 22c7e00922a0e132a8905ba54d95b6e8bdeabfad10cac64bfd2768c6178a5b9c - Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Modernism Made in New Mexico
sha256 bb1d5c0750bc5a5fadc299d9f707f75d0b709cb59e885293f994042675b10da8 - GHCN-Daily station catalogue
sha256 14c6467fcce6cce8dc0786eba8bbceed51a2f1c1056b0e221b573157559fc824 - GHCN-Daily element inventory
sha256 fb8a5b7b5bd25b6828fc822e4a4bc2a036053ac5af30697b4df1386a21cb0e59 - GHCN-Daily format and flag definitions
sha256 0e4e6f0e6947cf1add884c328a01760f31c56ef5fb86b85ed57dd5dc4c4aeaa6 - GHCN-Daily USC00298072, Santa Fe
sha256 29640cceeb8bd12a2e46dc7e7334c66456f12f08b79651b38961871f9e77c49a - GHCN-Daily USC00296028, Nambé 1
sha256 9597b86c1df139e3117f39fe76f256e61dda8fbf46ffcabe2c61291d8f63af3d - GHCN-Daily USC00293031, Española
sha256 5554c9d4062db88dbd9c318a0b9e78ec8cb07b3330ac833ab868c063b3bec1e5 - GHCN-Daily USC00299113, Truchas
sha256 4b06be3f44b1dd64a39fab7ddf432a8a8bb044813259b18aeb8102c74faa1a79 - GHCN-Daily USC00292820, El Rito
sha256 e0d335d976cbfc6df39a0a4dabe813667af26c72c952100435b3ea5a2f4a70e1 - GHCN-Daily USC00298086, Santa Fe Field Station
sha256 e37aa4d13375acdaf1e49c384fc0bc40e8ac90e5b5435e7822e602f4ede1c8e3 - Weather Bureau, New Mexico, 1930-06
sha256 de1575b55ef654b3acf67d496065c68ba649236a3873b3d5a842ee3eaad3c97d - Weather Bureau, New Mexico, 1930-07
sha256 b34c368164a9c5374d0123fb55012fd119e951eda489b6e3c4d37cf284ba3505 - Weather Bureau, New Mexico, 1930-08
sha256 fa25191199856b6752fcc03811787dc09229d4f2ee0d23f711c1825f665ba7b4 - Manual transcription of the cited Weather Bureau scans
sha256 086d71640c90de020ea635b7fc47c8b2f43afac4918d3f97015efd16d1e86711 - OpenStreetMap, Alcalde settlement reference
sha256 581f8c2d3799f683a5a6077976ff7174fb857606d8c1b6c2541b2b1250f01cf6 - NOAA Climatological Data publication collection and use constraints
sha256 f86815ecb585eae84fa63767f90b000f6156dd64da65407ffb018325cf2dee77