The Black Place

Grand Central Publishing · 2014 · 108pp · Book

A large format photography book by Walter W. Nelson with essay by Douglas Preston and introduction by Katherine Ware. Few people have ventured into the remote, uninhabited badlands of the Navajo Reservation in northwest New Mexico named the Black Place by Georgia O'Keeffe. The artist spent some twenty years painting and drawing in the area. Walter Nelson, who shares with O'Keeffe a great affinity for geology, went in search of The Black Place twenty years ago and returned more than thirty times to photograph this windswept landscape of black hills year-round in large-format 8 x 10 black-and-white, and digitally in color. The mystery and infinitude of The Black Place is revealed in the series of photographs taken of the secluded southwest landscape that inspired one of the greatest outpourings of creativity in O'Keeffe's artistic life. 108 pp., 65 color illustrations, 11x12 inches.