GRAND CANYON

Even more radical is "Evening," a work that makes no reference at all to the landscape but instead records the movement of O'Keeffe's paintbrush, which she used in an attempt to capture a state of mind. The same kind of reliance on the physical act of painting itself is seen in the incredible "Grey Abstraction (Train in the Desert)," which comprises interlocking arching smears that look like finger painting.

In addition to these remarkable watercolors, DAM has assembled its own collection of O'Keeffes--mostly oil paintings--and put them on display on the sixth floor. Also on view is a display of photographs entitled "The Permanent Presence" that includes portraits of O'Keeffe by the likes of Ansel Adams and Yousuf Karsh.

That O'Keeffe was not just an artist but a subject for artists is the topic of the perfect chaser for all of this museum mania: a photo exhibition around the corner at Camera Obscura Gallery. O'Keeffe at Abiquiu brings together a series of black-and-white photographs of O'Keeffe and her New Mexico environs taken in 1980 by one of the greatest photographers to have worked in Colorado, Myron Wood. Now confined to a wheelchair since a series of strokes forced his retirement, Wood saw the spirit of O'Keeffe in everything he shot, from the doors held shut by sticks to the rocks she had laid everywhere.

Together with the Canyon Suite at the DAM, the impressive O'Keeffe at Abiquiu serves only to bolster the O'Keeffe myth--and to leave Georgia on your mind.