With O'Keeffe Exhibit Over, Reynolda House Looks To The Future

A three-month exhibit of works by painter Georgia O'Keeffe set attendance records at the Reynolda House Museum of American Art in Winston-Salem, drawing nearly 32,000 total visitors.

"One of the ways we judge attendance - because some exhibitions are longer than others - is we calculate average daily attendance," says executive director Allison Perkins. "And the last, best attended exhibition was Ansel Adams: Eloquent Light. For that show, we averaged 306 people per day. But for Georgia O'Keeffe we averaged 392 visitors."

The O'Keefe show was the largest the museum has ever mounted, using five galleries to display almost 200 objects. That included articles of her clothing and many photographs.

“Our visitors learned not only about O'Keeffe as an artist, but also about O'Keeffe as a modern woman of the 20th Century,” Perkins says. “We saw some 40 different photographers who photographed O'Keeffe - they made their pilgrimage out to New Mexico - and documented O'Keeffe as this sort of rock star American female artist.”

The exhibit marked the centennial of the Reynolda House and the 50-year milestone for the museum. Now the galleries are decorated for the “Centennial Christmas” display. The next major exhibition, “Frederic Church: A Painter's Pilgrimage” begins Feb. 9.

Perkins says there's also a digital future for the museum.

“We're currently working on a mobile tour, and this is a tour that anyone will be able to download on whatever gadget they have in their pocket,” she says. ”It will take you through the landscape of Reynolda, through the woodland trails… and it will help visitors explore every historic building in Reynolda Village, including the formal gardens.”

That's expected to be available in late spring.