One of the most influential and innovative artists of the 20th century,
Georgia O’Keeffe (1887 – 1986) is best known for the enormous close-ups
of flowers which make up a significant percentage of her work. O’Keefe
believed that true artist...ic
meaning was only achieved through selection, elimination, and emphasis
of specific details; her fantastically magnified flowers dominate the
canvas. “Black and Purple Petunias”, painted in 1925, was among the
first of O’Keefe’s trademark series of flower paintings. Born near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, O'Keeffe first came to the attention of the New York art community in 1916, several decades before women had gained access to art training in America’s colleges and universities, and before any of its women artists were well known or highly celebrated. Within a decade, she had distinguished herself as one of America's most important modern artists, a position she maintained throughout her life. As a result, O’Keeffe not only carved out a significant place for women painters in an area of the American art community that had been exclusive to and is still dominated by men, but she also became one of America’s most celebrated cultural icons well before her death at age 98 in 1986.
Her abstract imagery of the 1910s and early 1920s is among the most innovative of any work produced in the period by American artists. She revolutionized the tradition of flower painting in the 1920s by making large-format paintings of enlarged blossoms, presenting them close up as if seen through a magnifying lens.
