Uploaded May 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Stop and smell the flowers. đ·
In the early 1920s, Georgia O'Keeffe began painting the lush gardens at the Lake George farm of her lover Alfred Stieglitz, filling the canvas with their blossoms. Flowers would go on to become her signature motif for the rest of her career.
In 'From the Old Garden No 1' (1924), garden flowers, including a vivid yellow day lily, Japanese anemones and lisianthus, exemplify her fascination and experimentation with colour and form. For OâKeeffe, flowers were not just beautiful subjects but tools that allowed her to explore the tension between abstraction and representation, a way to paint that was more striking and real to her than faithful realism. The canvas's reverse features an earlier abstraction, circa 1920, situating the artist as arguably the first woman abstract painter in America.
âI said to myself â I'll paint what I see â what the flower is to me but I'll paint it big and they will be surprised into taking time to look at it,' O'Keeffe recalled. 'I will make even busy New Yorkers take time to see what I see of flowers.â
đ Discover the beauty O'Keeffe saw in flowers: christies.com/en/lot/lot-6585788?ldp_breadcrumb=back&cid=EM_SM_O_YT_Inc_LDP___24265_2021CNY0525____VID__
đ 20thâŻCentury Evening Sale | New York | 18 May
Stop and smell the flowers. đ·
In the early 1920s, Georgia O'Keeffe began painting the lush gardens at the Lake George farm of her lover Alfred Stieglitz, filling the canvas with their blossoms. Flowers would go on to become her signature motif for the rest of her career.
In 'From the Old Garden No 1' (1924), garden flowers, including a vivid yellow day lily, Japanese anemones and lisianthus, exemplify her fascination and experimentation with colour and form. For OâKeeffe, flowers were not just beautiful subjects but tools that allowed her to explore the tension between abstraction and representation, a way to paint that was more striking and real to her than faithful realism. The canvas's reverse features an earlier abstraction, circa 1920, situating the artist as arguably the first woman abstract painter in America.
âI said to myself â I'll paint what I see â what the flower is to me but I'll paint it big and they will be surprised into taking time to look at it,' O'Keeffe recalled. 'I will make even busy New Yorkers take time to see what I see of flowers.â
đ Discover the beauty O'Keeffe saw in flowers: christies.com/en/lot/lot-6585788?ldp_breadcrumb=back&cid=EM_SM_O_YT_Inc_LDP___24265_2021CNY0525____VID__
đ 20thâŻCentury Evening Sale | New York | 18 May
