Author and historian Sarah Rovang. Courtesy photo

COUNTY NEWS RELEASE

The Los Alamos Public Library will host author and historian Sarah Rovang for a talk exploring the surprising connection between Georgia O’Keeffe and Cold War Los Alamos on Sunday, March 8, from 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. at Fuller Lodge.

In the early 1960s, American artist Georgia O’Keeffe commissioned a local builder to construct a fallout shelter at her Abiquiú property in northern New Mexico, spending the equivalent of over $10,000 in today’s money to build this cinderblock bunker in the hill beneath her studio. Oral tradition in Abiquiú holds that O’Keeffe wanted to survive in order to paint the post-apocalyptic landscape in the wake of nuclear war.

This talk complicates the myth and rumors surrounding O’Keeffe’s shelter by exploring the context of Cold War northern New Mexico more broadly. Far from the unapproachable hermit she is sometimes depicted as, O’Keeffe was deeply connected to and fascinated by the wider world of science and politics.

During the 1960s, O’Keeffe followed developments at nearby Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory closely and forged friendships with several scientists working there. While acknowledging the positive potentials of atomic science, O’Keeffe worried about nuclear proliferation and more immediately, possible accidents at the nearby laboratory. While the artist’s interest in environmental causes is well known, her keen understanding of particle physics and the scientific advancements at Los Alamos adds a new layer to how we understand her late career work.

Sarah Rovang is an architectural historian who lives in Santa Fe. Born and raised in New Mexico, she holds a Ph.D. in the history of art and architecture from Brown University, where her dissertation work examined the aesthetics and technological modernization of rural electrification in the United States during the New Deal. Her first book, “Through the Long Desert: Georgia O’Keeffe and Frank Lloyd Wright” was published by Rizzoli Electa in September 2025 in partnership with the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum and the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. She currently works as a program evaluator for the New Mexico Legislative Finance Committee (and is the wife of a Los Alamos scientist).

This author talk and all events at the Los Alamos Public Library are free and open to the public. More details on the talk can be found on the library’s calendar.  For additional information, call (505)662-8250 or email aimee.doiron@losalamosnm.gov.