Georgia O'Keeffe
American
Georgia O’Keeffe used modernist devices, such as cropping, to inspire wonder in the natural world. She is perhaps best known for her flower paintings, which explore color and form and challenge the tradition of metaphorical still-life painting. Her monumental blossoms suggest personal narratives, elaborate metaphors, and the artist’s pursuit of truth through beauty.
Born
1887
Died
1986
What is extraordinary in the ordinary?
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?”
Medium
Oil on hardboard
Credit
Museum purchase, gift of the M.H. de Young Family
Item ID
1990.55
Dimensions
18 x 30 in.
Date
1925
Country
Artist name
Georgia O'Keeffe
Dimensions (secondary)
45.7 x 76.2 cm