Georgia O'Keeffe was one of the most photographed women of the twentieth century. She actively participated in the creation of her own dramatic image, beginning in 1918, with the series of more than 300 photographs created by Alfred Stieglitz. After Stieglitz's death and her move to the remote village of Abiquiu in New Mexico, important portrait photographers followed her west to picture her at home and in her studio.

In 2006, The Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation transferred O'Keeffe's personal photograph collection to the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. This collection consists of both fine art photography and a wide range of archival photographic materials such as copy prints, negatives, contact sheets, documentary photographs, and personal snap shots. The photographic archive forms an invaluable record of O'Keeffe's life in art, a creative practice that spanned the twentieth century and the rise of American Modernism.

The photographs in this collection, MS.37, were originally in O'Keeffe's possession and given to James Johnson Sweeney when he was working on a book about her, which was never published.

James Johnson Sweeney (1900-1986) was an art curator, critic, historian, and museum director. Sweeney was a curator for the Museum of Modern Art from 1935 to 1946 and the director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, from 1952 to 1960. Sweeney was appointed director of the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston in 1961 where he stayed for several years. Sweeney was the curator of O'Keeffe's 1946 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art and consulted her on aspects of her career.