White Flower (1929): Art, History and Details

White Flower (1929) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Georgia O'Keeffe (American, 1887–1986).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

O’Keeffe is best known for close-up flower subjects whose magnified forms fill the entire space of each canvas. Likely inspired by similar compositions in modern photography, these images are not only celebrations of natural forms, but also striking essays in abstract design. Although many critics interpreted O’Keeffe’s flower paintings as reflections of femininity in general and female sexuality in particular, the artist strongly opposed such readings. Throughout most of her career, she frequently attempted to persuade others to discuss her work without referring to her gender, writing on one occasion, “I have always been very annoyed at being referred to as a ‘woman artist’ rather than an ‘artist.’”

Object facts

• Title: White Flower
• Date: 1929
• Creator attribution: Georgia O'Keeffe (American, 1887–1986)
• Culture: America
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 80 x 95.3 x 4.5 cm (31 1/2 x 37 1/2 x 1 3/4 in.); Unframed: 76.2 x 91.5 cm (30 x 36 in.)
• Collection: American - Painting
• Department: American Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1930.2162

A detail from the museum

This was the first flower painting by Georgia O'Keeffe to be purchased by an art museum.

Collection credit

Hinman B. Hurlbut Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Georgia O'Keeffe. Naturalezas íntimas: Fundación Juan March, Madrid, 8 febrero - 2 junio 2002. Madrid: Arte y Ciencia Editorial, 2001.
• Frelik, Edyta, "She Did Know a Few Things:Georgia O'Keeffe as an Intellectual," Polish Association for American Studies (July 2022).
• Davis, John and Michael Leja, eds. Art of the United States, 1750-2000: Primary Sources (Chicago: Terra Foundation for American Art, 2020).

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.