United States

The year she and the photographer Alfred Stieglitz were married, O’Keeffe planted a patch of flowers at the Stieglitz family summer home in upstate New York. Petunias is one of a dozen works she would paint from those plants over the next two years. She once declared, “Whether the flower or the color is the focus I do not know. I do know that the flower is painted large to convey to you my experience of the flower—and what is my experience of the flower if not color?”

While Homer based the majority of his Civil War paintings and illustrations on sketches, this portrait is based on a tintype photograph. Commercial portrait photography flourished during the war, and portraits of soldiers were treasured by the families who might lose their sons and brothers in battle. This portrait shows Albert Kintzing Post in a Union camp. A second lieutenant in the 45th Regiment of Massachusetts Infantry, Post survived the war but died a few years later at the age of twenty-nine while trying to save a boy from drowning.

While Homer based the majority of his Civil War paintings and illustrations on sketches, this portrait is based on a tintype photograph. Commercial portrait photography flourished during the war, and portraits of soldiers were treasured by the families who might lose their sons and brothers in battle. This portrait shows Albert Kintzing Post in a Union camp. A second lieutenant in the 45th Regiment of Massachusetts Infantry, Post survived the war but died a few years later at the age of twenty-nine while trying to save a boy from drowning.