1925, Georgia O'Keeffe, Petunias -- de Young Museum (San Francisco)
From the museum label:
O'Keeffe's magnified, cropped, and abstracted images of flowers revolutionized their traditionally gendered associations with femininity and domesticity-and female flower painters. Commenting on the scale of her works, O'Keeffe declared, "I said to myself-I'll paint what I see-what the flower is to me, but I'll paint it big and they will be surprised into taking time to look at it-I will make even busy New Yorkers take time to see what I see of flowers."
Petunias was one of a dozen works inspired by a bed of flowers that O'Keeffe planted at the upstate New York summer home of her husband, photographer and art dealer Alfred Stieglitz. Prompted by Stieglitz's exhibited nude photo- graphs of his wife, many viewers perceived sexual imagery in O'Keeffe's flower paintings. However, they may more accurately be described as visual equivalents for her deep emotional experiences of these subjects and their associations.
1925, Georgia O'Keeffe, Petunias -- de Young Museum (San Francisco)
From the museum label:
O'Keeffe's magnified, cropped, and abstracted images of flowers revolutionized their traditionally gendered associations with femininity and domesticity-and female flower painters. Commenting on the scale of her works, O'Keeffe declared, "I said to myself-I'll paint what I see-what the flower is to me, but I'll paint it big and they will be surprised into taking time to look at it-I will make even busy New Yorkers take time to see what I see of flowers."
Petunias was one of a dozen works inspired by a bed of flowers that O'Keeffe planted at the upstate New York summer home of her husband, photographer and art dealer Alfred Stieglitz. Prompted by Stieglitz's exhibited nude photo- graphs of his wife, many viewers perceived sexual imagery in O'Keeffe's flower paintings. However, they may more accurately be described as visual equivalents for her deep emotional experiences of these subjects and their associations.