Barbara Buhler Lynes is an art historian, curator, and Georgia O’Keeffe scholar. She agreed to author the catalogue raisonné in 1992, and served as the curator and Emily Fisher Landau Director of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum’s Research Center. Over the course of the decade, Lynes conducted extensive research to create a comprehensive record of O’Keeffe’s paintings, works on paper, and sculpture.

Judith Walsh, senior paper conservator at the National Gallery of Art, agreed to join the project in 1994. While intending to unframe works on paper to record accurate dimensions and inscriptions, Walsh’s role soon expanded. Lynes and Walsh conducted a paper study to help date and identify works. This technical analysis of material types encompassed not only O’Keeffe’s works on paper, but also her correspondence paper and unused studio materials. Over the course of the survey, Walsh and Lynes documented dimension, color, texture, thickness, type, and watermark of papers. Their research findings provide an invaluable resource and are published as part of the catalogue raisonné.