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In this essay, I’d deep dive into Georgia O’Keeffe’s oeuvre. An American artist and sculptor whose main body of work is synonymous with flowers. O’Keeffe married the famous art dealer and American photographer Alfred Stieglitz.

The ‘mother of American modernism’ and the most celebrated artist of the 20th century. In 1946, she became the first woman to earn a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art.

Let’s get started.

Imagine a canvas drenched with pink-velvety towering petals of Hibiscus and white shiny Plumeria with yellow hues. The artist illustrated a lifelike version of these tiny blooms so much so that even the pollens are distinct.

Let’s take a look at this canvas. What do we perceive?

At first glance, it looks like an abstract image but a closer look reveals the tender stems and shiny petals of a calla lily.

Agree, that the flowers look monumental but you might wonder, ‘what’s so special about them?’

Irises. The first reference that might come to your mind is Van Gogh's painting Irises that he painted while being admitted to the psychiatric hospital.

But irises have a special significance in Christianity. They are associated with the Passion of Christ (the week of his crucifixion and resurrection) probably because the flower blooms in spring around Easter.

Coming to O’Keeffe’s monumental art piece Black Iris III, at first glance, it looks abstract. By no way, a common art reader could predict it to be the picture of flowers.

The microscopic details of the flower: the curvy petals and how they synchronize with each other are visible through the naked eye. Isn’t it impeccable? O’Keeffe forces the viewer to observe the tiny details that might be overlooked otherwise.

Famous art historian Linda Nochlin, the writer of the famous iconic essay, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” in 1971 compared the Black iris as a morphological metaphor for genitalia.

For Nochlin, an O’Keeffe flower became shorthand for the vagina, and even some images were called out for clitoral imagery, too.

Grey Lines with Black, Blue and Yellow is considered to be the most provocative artwork by O’Keeffe.

Hues of multiple colors with undulating folds appear three-dimensional and create an image of potent ambiguity suggesting portrayals of plant life or as art critics argued, abstractions based on female anatomy.

Stieglitz's views on O’Keeffe’s art were heavily influenced by Sigmund Freud and thus, he linked her creativity with sexual energy and liberation. He often put O’Keeffe’s nude photographs alongside her artworks.

“When people read erotic symbols into my paintings, they’re really talking about their own affairs,” O’Keeffe argued.

Remember Judy Chicago’s iconic opus The Dinner Party? A triangular setting that comprises 39 seats, each signifying an important woman from history.

It is no coincidence that Chicago acknowledged O’Keeffe’s art, found her flowers sensual and later showcased her as a feminist in The Dinner Party.

O’Keeffe’s table comprises a sculptured ceramic plate resembling ‘the vulvar iconography’, ‘chalice’ and ‘a piece of raw Belgian linen’, which is used for art canvases. The front of the runner has embroidered letter “G” that appears as an antler, similar to her paintings From the Faraway Nearby (1937) and Ram’s Head, White Hollyhock-Hills (1935).

O’Keeffe emphasized that her flowers were the vehicles to explore abstraction and forge her own visual language. She deemed them as only flowers and treated them as joys, which humans often forgot to acknowledge.

However, O’Keeffe flowers are compared to vaginas, vulvas or female anatomy ever since.

In O’Keeffe’s biography, Portrait of an Artist, author Laurie Lisle mentions the experience of the owner of an O’Keeffe floral who discovered that a visitor once used the painting as a visual prop to teach a child about sex.

Is O’Keeffe’s floral series really just paintings of flowers? Or did she indirectly empower women and their sexuality while embracing her own femininity?

Let me know in the comments.

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